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JOHN BROWN 

1800 — 1859 

9 Bioffrap!)? fiUv iears after 

BY 

OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD 

A.M., LiTT.D. 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

CIjc Eii)er0iUe fjrees Cambrmp 

1910 



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COPYRIGHT, I9IO, BY OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published October iqio 



'A 27.3 278 

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TO THE MEMORY OF 

MY BELOVED AND HIGH-MINDED FATHER 

HENRY VILLARD 



PREFACE 

"There never was more need for a good life of any man 
than there was for one of John Brown," wrote Charles Eliot 
Norton in March, i860, in expressing in the Atlantic Monthly 
his dissatisfaction with the first biography of the leader of 
the attack upon Harper's Ferry. Twenty-six years later, in 
the same publication, Mr. John T. Morse, Jr., wrote that "so 
grand a subject cannot fail to inspire a writer able to do jus- 
tice to the theme; and when such an one draws Brown, he 
will produce one of the most attractive books in the lan- 
guage. But meantime the ill-starred 'martyr' suffers a pro- 
longation of martyrdom, standing like another St. Sebastian 
to be riddled with the odious arrows of fulsome panegyrists." 
Since 1886 there have appeared five other lives of Brown, the 
most important being that of Richard J. Hinton, who in his 
preface gloried in holding a brief for Brown and his men. 

The present volume is inspired by no such purpose, but is 
due to a belief that fifty years after the Harper's Ferry tragedy, 
the time is ripe for a study of John Brown, free from bias, 
from the errors in taste and fact of the mere panegyrist, and 
from the blind prejudice of those who can see in John Brown 
nothing but a criminal. The pages that follow were written 
to detract from or champion no man or set of men, but to put 
forth the essential truths of history as far as ascertainable, 
and to judge Brown, his followers and associates in the light 
thereof. How successful this attempt has been is for the 
reader to judge. That this volume in nowise approaches the 
attractiveness which Mr. Morse looked for, the author fully 
understands. On the other hand, no stone has been left un- 
turned to make accurate the smallest detail ; the original docu- 
ments, contemporary letters and living witnesses have been 
examined in every quarter of the United States. Materials 
never before utilized have been drawn upon, and others dis- 
covered whose existence has heretofore been unknown. Wher- 
ever sources have been quoted, they have been cited verbatim 
et literatim, the effort being to reproduce exactly spelling, 



Vlll 



PREFACE 



capitalization and punctuation, particularly in John Brown's 
own letters, which have suffered hitherto from free-hand 
editing. If at times, particularly in dealing with the Kansas 
period of John Brown's life, it may seem as if there were a 
superfluity of detail, the explanation is that already a hun- 
dred myths have attached themselves to John Brown's name 
which often hinge upon a date, or the possibility of his pre- 
sence at a given place at a given hour. Over some of theni have 
raged long and bitter controversies which give little evidence 
of the softening effects of time. 

So complex a character as John Brown's is not to be dis- 
missed by merely likening him to the Hebrew prophets or to 
a Cromwellian Roundhead, though both parallels are not 
inapt; and the historian's task is made heavier since nearly 
all characterizations of the man have been at one extreme or 
another. But there is, after all, no personality so complex that 
it cannot be tested by accepted ethical standards. To do this 
sincerely, to pass a deliberate and accurate historical judg- 
ment, to bestow praise and blame without favor or sectional 
partisanship, has been the author's endeavor. 

His efforts have been generously aided by the friends, rela- 
tives and associates of John Brown, whenever approached, 
and by many others who pay tribute, by their deep interest, 
to the vital force of John Brown's story. It would be impos- 
sible to mention all here. But to Salmon Brown and Henry 
Thompson is due the writer's ability to record for the first 
time the exact facts as to the happenings on the Pottawatomie, 
and the author is also particularly indebted to Jason Brown, 
Miss Sarah Brown, Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, and Mrs. 
John Brown, Jr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, F. B. San- 
born, Horace White, George B. Gill, Luke F. Parsons, Mrs. 
Emma Wattles Morse, Mrs. Rebecca Spring, Jennie Dunbar 
(Mrs. Lee Garcelon) and R. G. Elliott, of Lawrence, are a few 
of the survivors of John Brown's time who have aided by 
counsel or reminiscence. Special thanks are due to George 
W. Martin, Miss Adams and Miss Clara Francis, of the Kan- 
sas Historical Society, for valuable assistance, as well as to 
the Historical Department of Iowa, the Western Reserve 
Historical Society, the Department of Archives and History 
of the Virginia State Library, the Pennsylvania and Massa- 



PREFACE 



IX 



chusetts Historical Societies, and to Louis A. Reese, lately of 
Brown University, who generously placed at the author's 
disposal the manuscript of his admirable work on "The Ad- 
mission of Kansas as a State." Mrs. S. L. Clark, of Berea, 
Kentucky, Mrs. S. C. Davis, of Kalamazoo, Miss Leah Talia- 
ferro, of Gloucester County, Virginia, Miss Mary E. Thomp- 
son, Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger, Mrs. J. B. Remington, of 
Osawatomie, Kansas, Dr. Thaddeus Hyatt, the family of the 
late Joshua R. Giddings, Dr. Frederick C. Waite, of Western 
Reserve University, Dr. Henry A. Stevens, of Boston, Cleon 
Moore, of Charlestown, West Virginia, William E. Connel- 
ley, of Topeka, Kansas, and Edwin Tatham, of New York, 
have placed the author under special obligations here grate- 
fully acknowledged. 

Dr. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, of Washington, has been 
most generous in giving the author free access to his rich 
collections of books, pamphlets and photographs, and they 
have been largely drawn upon. The author also gladly records 
his lasting indebtedness to Miss Katherine Mayo, whose jour- 
neys in search of material for his use have covered a period of 
more than two years and many thousands of miles. But for 
her judgment, her tact and skill, and her enthusiasm for the 
work, it could hardly have approached its present compre- 
hensiveness. Finally, without the approval, generous aid and 
encouragement of his uncle, Francis Jackson Garrison, of 
Boston, the author could not have undertaken or completed 
this book. 
New York, August i, 1910. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Moulding of the Man i 

II. "His Greatest or Principal Object" 42 

III. In the Wake of the War Cloud 79 

IV. The Captain of the Liberty Guards 112 

V. Murder on the Pottawatomie 148 

VI. Close Quarters at Black Jack i8q 

VII. The Foe in the Field 225 

VIII. New Friends for Old Visions 267 

IX. A Convention and a Postponement 310 

X. Shubel Morgan, Warden of the Marches . . .346 

XI. The Eve of the Tragedy 391 

SXII. High Treason in Virginia 426 

XIII. Guilty before the Law 467 

XIV. By Man shall his Blood be Shed 511 

XV. Yet shall he Live 558 

Notes 591 

Appendix 

A. " Sambo's Mistakes," by John Brown 659 

B. John Brown's Covenant for the Enlistment of his Volunteer- 

Regular Company, August, 1856 66 1 

C. John Brown's Requisition upon the National Kansas Com- 

mittee, for an outfit for his proposed Company, January, 
1857 664 

D. John Brown's Peace Agreement 665 

E. Shubel Morgan's Company 666 

F. John Brown's Wills 667 

G. John Avis's Affidavit as to his Association with John Brown 670 
H. A Chronology of John Brown's Movements from his depar- 
ture for Kansas, August 13, 1855, to his death, December 

2, 1859 672 

I. John Brown's Men at Arms 678 



xii CONTENTS 

Bibliography 

I. Manuscript Collections 689 

II. Biographies 689 

III. Magazine and Other Articles 690 

IV. Authorities on the Kansas Period 694 

V. Books, Pamphlets and Periodicals relating particularly to the Har- 
per's Ferry Raid 697 

VI. Reports of Important Meetings dealing with the Raid and Execu- 
tion 700 

VII. Important Speeches and Addresses on John Brown, as separately 

published 701 

VIII. Some Typical Sermons 702 

IX. Biographies, Autobiographies and Reminiscences of Correlated or 

Important Persons 703 

X. Local and General Histories with Special References to John Brown 

and his Men 707 

Index 7ii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

John Brown Frontispiece 

From a painting by Nahum B. Onthank in the Boston AthencBum. This 
was based on a photograph from life by J. W. Black, of Boston, in May, 
185Q, and the artist had the benefit of the criticisms and suggestions of Mrs. 
Brown, John Brown, Jr., and other members of the family. Onthank made 
two paintings, one of which was purchased by Thaddeus Hyatt and presented 
by him to the People of Hayti, through President Geffrard. The second was 
purchased by subscription and given to the Athenceum. 

Owen Brown, Father of John Brown 14 

From a photograph 

Four of John Brown's Sons in Later Years: John Brown, 
Jr., Jason, Salmon and Owen Brown 166 

From photographs. 

The Osawatomie Battlefield, looking toward the River 244 

From a photograph. 

Part of the Black Jack Battlefield 244 

From a photograph. 

Main Street of Tabor, Iowa 268 

From a photograph. 

The Public Square at Tabor 268 

From a photograph. 

John Brown 282 

Photogravure from a daguerreotype {1857?) kindly loaned by Mrs. Charles 
Fair child, Cambridge, Mass. 

House of Rev. John Todd, Tabor, Iowa 316 

Where John Brown stored his guns and ammunition. 
From a photograph. 

The School-house at Springdale 316 

Where the Mock Legislature met. 
From a photograph. 

John Brown 338 

Photogravure from a photograph taken {probably in June, 1858) by J. J. 
Hawes, of Boston 

John Brown's Northern Supporters: George L. Stearns, 
Gerrit Smith, Frank B. Sanborn, Thomas Wentworth 
HiGGiNsoN, Theodore Parker, Samuel G. Howe . . .396 

From photographs. 



xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 

The House at Kennedy Farm, Maryland 404 

From a woodcut. 

The Cabin across the Road from the Farmhouse . . . 404 

From a woodcut. 

School-house guarded by John E. Cook 404 

From a woodcut. 

Map of the Harper's Ferry Region 414 

General View of Harper's Ferry, West Virginia . . .428 

From a photograph kindly furnished by the Baltimore &f Ohio Railroad. 

Harper's Ferry: The Fighting at the Engine-House . 444 

From a woodcut. 

Victims of Harper's Ferry: John H, Kagi, Aaron D. Ste- 
vens, Oliver Brown and Watson Brown 448 

From photographs. 

The Storming of the Engine-house 452 

From a woodcut. 

The Prison, Guard-House, and Court-House, Charles- 
town, West Virginia 486 

From a woodcut. 

One of John Brown's Letters from Prison 542 

Fac- simile from the original in possession of Mr. Theodore P. Adams, of 
Plymouth, Mass. 

John Brown's Last Prophecy 554 

Facsimile from the original in possession of Mr. Frank G. Logan, of 
Chicago. 

The North Elba Farmhouse 562 

From a photograph. 

John Brown's Grave 562 

From a photograph. 

Note. — The Osawatomie and Black Jack battlefields, the Todd house at 
Tabor, and school-house at Springdale, were photographed by the author in 
1908; the views of Kennedy Farm, of the fighting at Harper's Ferry, and of the 
Charlestown Court-House and Prison are reproduced from woodcuts in Frank 
Leslie's Illustrated Paper (New York) for October and November, 1859; the por- 
traits of Owen Brown (father of John Brown), Kagi, Stevens, Oliver and Watson 
Brown, and the views of the Farmhouse and Grave at North Elba, are from 
photographs kindly lent by Dr. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, of Washington, D. C; 
the portraits of John Brown, Jr.. and of Salmon and Owen Brown are from photo- 
graphs belonging to Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Put-in Bay, Ohio; that of Jason Brown, 
from a photograph made in 1908, for Mr. Earl E. Martin, editor of the Cleve- 
land Press. 



JOHN BROWN 



\ 



All through the conflict, up and down 
Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brou'n, 

One ghost, one form ideal; 
And which was false and which was true, 
And which was mightier of the two. 
The wisest sibyl never knew. 

For both alike were real. 

O. \V. Holmes. 



JOHN BROWN 

CHAPTER I 
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 

Red Rock, Iowa 15th July, 1857 

Mr. Henry L. Stearns. 

My Dear Young Friend I have not forgotten my pro- 
mise to write you ; but my constant care, & anxiety : have 
obliged me to put it off a long time. I do not flatter myself 
that I can write anything that will very much interest you : 
but have concluded to send you a short story of a certain boy 
of my acquaintance : & for convenience & shortness of name, 
I will call him John. This story will be mainly a naration of 
follies and errors; which it is to be hoped you may avoid; but 
there is one thing connected with it, which will be calculated 
to encourage any young person to persevereing effort ; & that 
is the degree of success in accomplishing his objects which to 
a great extent marked the course of this boy throughout my 
entire acquaintance with him ; notwithstanding his moderate 
capac it\' ; & still more moderate acquirements. 

John was born May 9th, 1800, at Torrington, Litchfield Co. 
Connecticut ; of poor but respectable parents : a decendant on 
the side- of his Father of one of the company of the Mayflower 
who landed at Plymouth 1620. His mother was decended 
from a man who came at an early period to New England from 
Amsterdam, in Holland. Both his Fathers and his Mothers 
Fathers served in the war of the revolution: His Father's 
Father ; died in a barn at New York while in the service, in 
1776. 

I cannot tell vou of anvthing in the first Four years of 
John's life worth mentioning save that at that early age he 
was tempted b^• Three large Brass Pins belonging to a girl who 
lived in the famih' & stole them. In this he was detected by 
his Mother; & after having a full day to think of the wrong; 



2 JOHN BROWN 

received from her a thorough whipping. When he was Five 
years old his Father moved to Ohio ; then a wilderness filled 
with wild beasts, & Indians. During the long journey which 
was performed in part or mostly with an Oxteam; he was 
called on by turns to assist a boy Five years older (who had 
been adopted by his Father & Mother) & learned to think he 
could accomplish smart things in driving the Cows ; & riding 
the horses. Sometimes he met with Rattle Snakes w^hich were 
very large ; & which some of the company generally managed 
to kill. After getting to Ohio in 1805 he was for some time 
rather afraid of the Indians, & of their Rifles; but this soon 
wore off : & he used to hang about them quite as much as was 
consistent with good manners ; & learned a trifle of their talk. 
His father learned to dress Deer Skins, & at 6 years old John 
was installed a young Buck Skin. He was perhaps rather 
observing as he ever after remembered the entire process of 
Deer Skin dressing; so that he could at any time dress his 
own leather such as Squirel, Raccoon, Cat, Wolf or Dog Skins; 
and also learned to make Whip Lashes : which brought him 
some change at times ; & was of considerable service in many 
ways. At Six years old John began to be quite a rambler in the 
wild new country finding birds and Squirrels and sometimes a 
wild Turkeys nest. But about this period he was placed in the 
School of adversity; which my young friend was a most neces- 
sary part of his early training. You may laugh when you come 
to read about it; but these were sore trials to John: whose 
earthly treasures were very few, & small. These were the be- 
ginning of a severe but much needed course of dicipline which 
he afterwards was to pass through ; & which it is to be hoped 
has learned him before this time that the Heavenly Father 
sees it best to take all the little things out of his hands which 
he has ever placed in them. When John was in his Sixth year 
a poor Indian boy gave him a Yellow Marble the first he had 
ever seen. This he thought a great deal of ; & kept it a good 
while ; but at last he lost it beyond recovery. // took years to 
heal the wound & I think he cried at times about it. About 
Five months after this he caught a young Squirel tearing off 
his tail in doing it ; & getting severely bitten at the same time 
himself. He however held on to the little bob tail Squirrel ; & 
finally got him perfectly tamed, so that he almost idolized his 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 3 

pet. This too he lost; by its wandering away; or by getting 
killed ; & for a year or two John was m mourning; and looking 
at all the Squirrels he could see to try & discover Bobtail, if 
possible. I must not neglect to tell you of a verry bad & foolish 
habbit to which John was somewhat addicted. I mean telling 
lies ; generally to screen himself from blame ; or from punish- 
ment. He could not well endure to be reproached ; & I now 
think had he been oftener encouraged to be entirely frank ; 
by making frankness a kind of atonement for some of his faults ; 
he would not have been so often guilty in after life of this 
fault ; nor have been obliged to struggle so long with so mean 
a habit. 

John was 7iever quarrelsome ; but was excessively fond of the 
hardest & roughest kind of plays ; & could never get enough [of] 
them. Indeed when for a short time he was sometimes sent 
to School the opportunity it afforded to wrestle, & Snow ball 
& run & jump & knock off old seedy Wool hats; offered to 
him almost the only compensation for the confinement, & re- 
straints of school. I need not tell you that with such a feeling 
& but little chance of going to school at all: he did not become 
much of a schollar. He would always choose to stay at home 
& work hard rather than be sent to school ; & during the 
Warm season might generally be seen barefooted & bareheaded : 
with Buck skin Breeches suspended often with one leather 
strap over his shoulder but sometimes with Two. To be sent 
off through the wilderness alone to very considerable distances 
was particularly his delight; & in this he was often indulged 
so that by the time he was Twelve years old he was sent off 
more than a Hundred Miles with companies of cattle ; & he 
would have thought his character much injured had he been 
obliged to be helped in any such job. This was a boyish kind 
of feeling but characteristic however. At Eight years old, 
John was left a Motherless bo}^ which loss was complete & 
permanent for notwithstanding his Father again married to 
a sensible, inteligent, and on many accounts a very estimable 
woman; yet he never adopted her in feeling; but continued 
to pine after his own Mother for years. This opperated very 
unfavorably uppon him ; as he was both naturally fond of 
females; &, withall, extremely diffident; & deprived him of a 
suitable connecting link between the different sexes ; the want 



4 JOHN BROWN 

of which might under some circumstances, have proved his 
ruin. When the war broke out with England: his Father soon 
commenced furnishing the troops with beef cattle, the collect- 
ing & driving of which afforded him some opportunity for the 
chase (on foot) of wild steers & other cattle through the woods. 
During this war he had some chance to form his own boyish 
judgment of men & measures : & to become somewhat famil- 
iarly acquainted with some who have figured before the coun- 
try since that time. The effect of what he saw during the 
war was to so far disgust him with Military affairs that he 
would neither train, or drill; but paid fines; & got along like a 
Quaker untill his age finally has cleared him of Military duty. 
During the war with England a circumstance occurred that 
in the end made him a most determined A bolitionist : & led him 
to declare, or Swear : Eternal war with Slavery. He was stay- 
ing for a short time with a very gentlemanly landlord since a 
United States Marshall who held a slave boy near his own age 
very active, inteligent, and good feeling ; & to whom John 
was under considerable obligation for numerous little acts of 
kindness. The Master made a great pet of John : brought him 
to table with his first company ; & friends ; called their atten- 
tion to every little smart thing he said or did : & to the fact of 
his being more than a hundred miles from home with a com- 
pany of cattle alone ; while the negro boy (who was fully if not 
more than his equal) was badly clothed, poorly fed ; & lodged 
in cold weather ; & beaten before his eyes with Iron Shovels 
or any other thing that came first to hand. This brought John 
to reflect on the wretched, hopeless condition, of Fatherless 
& Motherless slave children: for such children have neither 
Fathers or Mothers to protect & provide for them. He some- 
times would raise the question is God their Father ? At the age 
of Ten years, an old friend induced him to read a little history, 
& offered him the free use of a good library ; b}^ ; which he 
acquired some taste for reading : which formed the principle 
part of his early education : & diverted him in a great measure 
from bad company. He by this means grew to be verry fond of 
the company & conversation of old & inteligent persons. He 
never attempted to dance in his life; nor did he ever learn to 
know one of a pack of Cards from another. He learned nothing 
of Grammer ; nor did he get at school so much knowledge of 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 5 

comm[on] Arithmetic as the Four ground rules. This will give 
you some general idea of the first Fifteen years of his life ; 
during which time he became very strong & large of his age & 
ambitious to perform the full labour of a man ; at almost any 
kind of hard work. By reading the lives of great, wise & good 
men their sayings, and writings ; he grew to a dislike of vain & 
frivolous conversation & persons; & was often greatly obliged 
by the kind manner in which older & more inteligent persons 
treated him at their houses : & in conversation ; which was 
a great relief on account of his extreme bashfulness. He very 
early in life became ambitious to excel in doing anything he 
undertook to perform. This kind of feeling I would recom- 
mend to all young persons both Male & jemale: as it will cer- 
tainly tend to secure admission to the company of the more 
inteligent; & better portion of every community. By all 
means endeavour to excel in some laudable pursuit. I had 
like to have forgotten to tell you of one of John's misfortunes 
which set rather hard on him while a young boy. He had by 
some means perhaps by gift of his Father become the owner 
of a little Ewe Lamb which did finely till it was about Two 
Thirds grown; & then sickened and died. This brought an- 
other protracted mourning season : not that he felt the pecun- 
iary loss so heavily : for that was never his disposition ; but so 
strong & earnest were his attachments. John had been taught 
from earliest childhood to "fear God & keep his command- 
ments;" & though quite skeptical he had always by turns felt 
much serious doubt as to his future well being ; & about this 
time became to some extent a convert to Christianity & ever 
after a firm believer in the divine authenticity of the Bible. 
With this book he became very familiar, & possessed a most 
unusual memory of its entire contents. 

Now some of the things I have been telling of; were just such 
as I would recommend to you : & I would like to know that you 
had selected these out ; & adopted them as part of your own 
plan of life ; & I wish you to have some deffinite plan. Many 
seem to have none ; & others never to stick to any that they do 
form. This was not the case with John. He followed up with 
tenacity whatever he set about so long as it answered his gen- 
eral purpose : & hence he rarely failed in some good degree to 
effect the things he undertook. This was so much the case 



6 JOHN BROWN 

that he habitually expected to succeed in his undertakings. With 
this feeUng should be coupled ; the consciousness that our plans 
are right in themselves. 

During the period I have named, John had acquired a kind 
of ownership to certain animals of some little value but as 
he had come to understand that the title of minors might be a 
little imperfect : he had recourse to various means in order to 
secure a more independent; & perfect right of property. One 
of these means was to exchange with his Father for some- 
thing of far less value. Another was by trading with other per- 
sons for something his Father had never owned. Older persons 
have sometimes found difficulty with titles. 

From Fifteen to Twenty years old, he spent most of his 
time working at the Tanner & Currier's trade keeping Bach- 
elors hall ; & he officiating as Cook ; & for most of the time 
as foreman of the establishment under his Father. During 
this period he found much trouble with some of the bad hab- 
its I have mentioned & with some that I have not told you 
of : his conscience urging him forward with great power in this 
matter: but his close attention to business; & success in its 
management ; together with the way he got along with a com- 
pany of men, & boys ; made him quite a favorite with the seri- 
ous & more inteligent portion of older persons. This was so 
much the case ; & secured for him so many little notices from 
those he esteemed ; that his vanity was very much fed by 
it : & he came forward to manhood quite full of self-conceit ; 
& self-confident ; notwithstanding his extreme bashfulness. A 
younger brother used sometimes to remind him of this: & 
to repeat to him this expression which you may somewhere 
find, "A King against whom there is no rising up." The habit 
so early formed of being obeyed rendered him in after life 
too much disposed to speak in an imperious or dictating way. 
From Fifteen years & upward he felt a good deal of anxiety 
to learn ; but could only read & studdy a little ; both for want 
of time ; & on account of inflammation of the eyes. He how- 
ever managed by the help of books to make himself tolera- 
bly well acquainted with common Arithmetic ; & Surveying ; 
which he practiced more or less after he was Twenty years old. 
At a little past Twenty years led by his own inclination & 
prompted also by his Father, he married a remarkably plain; 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 7 

but neat industrious & economical girl ; of excellent character ; 
earnest piety; & good practical common sense; about one 
year younger than himself. This woman by her mild, frank, 
& more than all else; by her very consistent conduct ; acquired 
& ever while she lived maintained a most powerful ; & good 
influence over him. Her plain but kind admonitions generally 
had the right effect ; without arousing his haughty obstinate 
temper. John began early in life to discover a great liking to 
fine Cattle, Horses, Sheep, & Swine; & as soon as circum- 
stances would enable him he began to be a practical Shep- 
herd : it being a calling for which in early life he had a kind of 
enthusiastic longing: together with the idea that as a business 
it bid fair to afford him the means of carrying out his greatest 
or principal object. I have now given you a kind of general 
idea of the early life of this boy; & if I beheved it would be 
worth the trouble ; or afford much interest to any good feeling 
person ; I might be tempted to tell you something of his course 
in after life ; or manhood. I do not say that I -will do it. 

You will discover that in using up my half sheets to save 
paper; I have written Two pages, so that one does not follow 
the other as it should. I have no time to write it over; & but 
for unavoidable hindrances in traveling I can hardly say when 
I should have written what I have. With an honest desire for 
your best good, I subscribe myself, 

Your Friend, 

J. Brown. 

P. S. I had like to have forgotten to acknowledge your con- 
tribution in aid of the cause in which I serve. God Allmighty 
bless you; my son. 

J. B. 



In this simple, straightforward, yet remarkable narrative * 
John Brown of Osawatomie and Harper's Ferry outlined his 
youth to the thirteen-year-old son of his benefactor, George 
Luther Stearns. It remains the chief source of knowledge as to 
the formative period of one who for a brief day challenged the 
attention of a great nation, compelled it to heart searchings 
most beneficent in their results, and through his death of ap- 
parent ignominy achieved not only an historical immortality, 



8 JOHN BROWN 

but a far-reaching victory over forces of evil against which he 
had dared and lost his life. John Brown, a Puritan in the aus- 
terity of his manner of living, the narrowness of his vision and 
the hardships he underwent, came of a family of pioneers. But 
he was not of those adventurers into the wilderness who are 
content, after carving out with the axe a little kingdom for 
themselves, to rule peacefully to the end of their days. His 
early adventures, his contact with the American aborigines, 
his boyish experiences with the flotsam and jetsam of armies 
in the field, all bred up in him a restlessness not characteris- 
tic of the original Puritans, but with him a dominant feature of 
his whole career. To John Brown life from the outset meant 
incessant strife, first against unconquered nature, then in the 
struggle for a living, and finally in that effort to be a Samson to 
the pro-slavery Philistines in which his existence culminated. 
"I expect nothing but to endure hardness," he wrote to a 
friend in an attempt to enlist him in the Harper's Ferry enter- 
prise. It would have been surprising, indeed, had he expected 
anything else, for to nothing else was he accustomed. From 
the " school of adversity" in which he was placed, as he wrote, 
at the age of six years, he graduated only at his death. 

The picture which John Brown drew of his experiences in 
the early settlement of Ohio, just a century ago, was by no 
means over-colored. The American public is apt to think that 
pioneering was difficult only in New England in the seven- 
teenth century, in Kentucky and Tennessee in the eighteenth, 
and in the far West in the nineteenth. But the story of the 
settlement of the Middle West reads in no essential differ- 
ently, if perhaps less dramatically, than the better known ex- 
tensions of the ever-expanding frontier. There were the same 
hardships, the same facing of death by disease or, at times, in 
ambush, the same exhausting toil, the same terrifying loneli- 
ness, the same never-ending battling against relentless ele- 
ments. This struggle for existence Brown's family shared 
with those fellow emigrants who ventured with them into the 
Ohio forest primeval, destroying it with great labor, driving 
the wolves, panthers and bears from their rude cabin doors, 
and subsisting, penuriously enough, on the wild game of the 
woods and such scanty crops as the squirrels, blackbirds, rac- 
coons and porcupines permitted to grow to maturity among 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 9 

the stumps of the cleared tracts. As late as 1817 there were 
bears who helped themselves in this district of Ohio to the 
settlers' pigs, and in 18 19, in a great hunt, no less than one 
hundred deer and a dozen and a half bears and wolves were 
corralled and shot down by the hunters of four townships ^ 
around Hudson. These wild animals of the forest not only 
supplied meat for the scantily furnished larders, but skins 
wherewith to make clothing and caps for others besides John 
Brown. Farms were bought and paid for in hard and bitter 
experiences. The roads were but a pretence, rough log bridges 
led across the swamps, and the only means of transportation 
w^hich could survive long were the roughest sleds, ox-carts 
and stone-boats. In the summer of 1806, the year after John 
Brown arrived, there were, according to an old settler,^ frosts 
every month, "no corn got ripe, and the next spring w^e had 
to send to the Ohio river for seed corn to plant." This w^as 
the beginning of the "school of adversity" for John Brown, 
and the next summer's session was one of the hardest that the 
pioneers ever stored away in their recollections. But not the 
worst; that John Brown thought the summer of 1817, which 
he described as a period " of extreme scarcity of not only money, 
but of the greatest distress for want of provisions known 
during the nineteenth century." * He and three others were 
destitute "between the seaside and Ohio," but they had 
learned not to be afraid of "spoiling themselves by hard work," 
and they managed to keep body and soul together. Even in 
times of plenty, provisions were hard to get, and were best 
purchased by labor of those fortunate enough to have an 
abundance, the rate being three and a half pounds of pork for a 
day's service. Fortunately, the neighboring Indians, Senecas, 
Ottawas and Chippewas, were well behaved and friendly, 
rarely sinning, but often sinned against. It was in this atmos- 
phere so friendly to the steeling of muscles, the training of eyes 
and hands, the enduring of arduous labor and the cultivation 
of the primal virtues, that John Brown grew up to self-reliant 
manhood. Under these conditions was his character moulded 
and forged, until there emerged a man of singular natural force, 
direct of speech, earnest of purpose, and usually resolute, with 
the frontiersman's ability to shift readily from one occupation 
to another and an incurable readiness to wander. 



lo JOHN BROWN 

"Although the time when a man comes into the world and the 
place where he appears are in certain ways important and may 
well begin his story," declared Professor N. S. Shaler in his all 
too brief autobiography, ' ' the really weighty question concerns 
his inheritances and the conditions in which they were devel- 
oped. That he brings with him something that is in a mea- 
sure independent of all his progenitors, a certain individuality 
which makes him distinct in essentials from like beings he 
succeeds, is true — vastly true ; but the way he is to go is, to 
a great extent, shaped by those who sent him his life." ^ The 
conditions of early life in Ohio were precisely those for which 
John Brown's inheritances should best have fitted him. He 
came of simple, frugal, hard-working folk, deeply interested 
in religion and the church into which they sent some of their 
best, and, above all, imbued with a strong love of liberty. 
His father's father, who died "in a barn in New York" while 
a captain of the Ninth Company, or Train-band 9, in the 
Eighteenth Regiment of the Connecticut Colony, likewise 
bore the name of John Brown, and on the other side the 
tradition of arms came down to him from his maternal grand- 
father. The Revolutionary Captain John Brown was the son 
and grandson of men of the same name, likewise citizens of 
Connecticut, the senior of whom, born February 4, 1694, was 
the son of Peter Brown, of Windsor, Connecticut. Through 
this Peter Brown, John Brown of Osawatomie, like many 
another of his patronymic, believed himself descended from 
Peter Brown of the goodly Mayflower company, — errone- 
ously, for modern genealogical research has proved that the 
Mayflower Peter Brown left no male issue. ^ But the posses- 
sion of an actual Mayflower progenitor is not indispensable 
to the establishment of a long line of ancestry, and so Peter 
Brown of Windsor, born in 1632, can surely lay claim to being 
among the earliest white colonists on this continent, — early 
enough at least to make it plain that in John Brown of Osa- 
watomie's veins ran the blood of solid middle-class citizens, 
the bone and sinew of the early colonies, as of the infant 
American republic. 

It is not related of any of the colonial John Browns that 
they were especially distinguished. When Captain John 
Brown, of the Eighteenth Connecticut, gave his life for the 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN ii 

independence of his country, he left a wife and ten children 
at West Simsbury, now Canton, Connecticut, and a posthu- 
mous son came into the world soon after his father perished, 
the oldest child, a daughter, being then about seventeen. 
"The care and support of this family," wrote his son Owen 
many years later, "fell mostly on my mother. The labor- 
ing men were mostly in the army. She was one of the best 
mothers; active and sensible. She did all that could be ex- 
pected of a mother ; yet for the want of help we lost our crops, 
then our cattle, and so became poor." In the "dreadful hard 
winter" of 1778-79 they were deprived of nearly all their 
sheep, cattle and hogs, and the spring found them in the 
greatest distress. This was the "school of adversity" in which 
John Brown's father was trained, he also beginning at the age 
of six the lessons in hardship which made of him a sturdy, 
vigorous, honest pioneer, and hardened his body for its long 
existence of eighty-five years. In the autobiography ^ which 
he wrote at his children's request, when nearly eighty years 
of age, Owen Brown summed up his career in this sentence : 
" My life has been of little worth, mostly filled up with van- 
ity." In this harsh judgment his neighbors would not have 
concurred. Owen Brown stood well with everybody, even 
with those who had no liking for his militant son. Yet this 
sentence gives a key to the piety which filled Owen's life, and 
explains, too, whence the son received his own strong religious 
tendency. In Owen Brown's last letter to his son, penned only 
six weeks before his death, occurs this wish : " I ask all of you 
to pray more earnestly for the salvation of my soul than for the 
life of my body, and that I may give myself and all I have up 
to Christ and honer him by a sacrifise of all we have." ^ 

Similar pious expressions are to be found in almost every 
one of John Brown's letters to the members of his family. 
Their salvation, their clinging to the orthodox Congregational 
faith to which he held so tenaciously, their devotion to the 
Scriptures, — these are things which ever concerned him. 
Indeed, the resemblance of John Brown to his father appears 
in many ways, not the least in their respective biographies. 
Owen's is as characteristic a document as the one which 
begins this volume. In It he relates his wanderings as an 
apprentice and later as a full-fledged shoemaker and tanner. 



12 JOHN BROWN 

But if he moved about a good deal in the struggle to sup- 
port himself, learn a trade and relieve the heavily burdened 
mother of his support, when he finally reached Ohio, in 1805, 
Owen Brown remained in one locality for fifty-one years, until 
his death, May 8, 1856. Owen received, he narrates, consid- 
erable instruction from the Rev. Jeremiah Hallock, the min- 
ister of Canton, who was a connection of many of the Browns, 
hiring out to this worthy pastor for six months in 1790. In 
the spring of 1791 the family fortunes were again in the 
ascendant. One brother, John by name, was for many years 
an honored citizen of New Hartford, Connecticut; another, 
Frederick, after serving in the Connecticut Legislature during 
the War of 1812, moved to Wadsworth, Medina County, Ohio, 
where he was long a highly respected county judge. Of this 
Frederick's sons, two became successful physicians and one 
a minister. 

In the fall of 1790, Owen Brown became acquainted with 
his future wife, Ruth Mills, ''who was the choice of my affec- 
tions ever after, although we were not married for more than 
two years." He was, at this time, it appears, "under some 
conviction of sin but whether I was pardoned or not God only 
knows — this I know I have not lived like a Christian." The 
beginning of his married life Owen Brown described thus : 

" Feb 13th 1793 I was married to Ruth Mills in March begun to 
keep House and here I will say was the begining of days with me. 
I think our good Minister felt all the anxiety of Parent that we 
should begin wright, he gave us good counsel and I have no doubts 
with a praying spiret, here I will say never had any Person such an 
assendence over my conduct as my wife, this she had without the lest 
appearence of userpation, and if I have been respected in the World 
I must ascribe it more to her than to any other Person. We begun 
with but very little property but with industry and frugality, which 
gave us a very comfortable seport and a small increas. We took in 
children to live with us very soon after we began to keep House.* 
Our first Child was born at Canton June 29th 1794 a son we called 
Salmon he was a very thrifty forward Child, we lived in Canton about 
two years, I worked at Shoemaking, Tanning and Farming we made 
Butter and Chees on a small scale and all our labours turned to good 
account, we had great calls [cause] for thanksglven, we were at peace 
with all our Neighbours, we lived in a rented House and I seamed 

* Levi Blakeslee, early adopted by Owen and Ruth Brown, became the head 
of a highly respected Ohio family. 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 13 

to be called to build or moovc. I thought of the latter and went 
directly to Norfolk as I was there acquainted and my wife had kept 
a school there one summer, the People of Norfolk incoureged me and 
I bought a small Farm with House and Barn, I then sold what little 
I had, and made a very suddon move to Norfolk, we found Friends 
in deed and in kneed. I there set up Shoemaking and tanning, hired 
a journaman did a small good business and gave good sattisfac- 
tion. ... In Feb, 1799 I had an oppertunity to sell my place of Nor- 
folk which I did without any consultation of our Neighbours who 
thought they had some clame on my future servises as they had been 
very kind and helpfull and questioned weather I had not been hasty 
but I went as hastely to Torrington and bought a place, all though 
I had but very little acquantence there. I was very quick on the 
moove we found very good Neighbours I was somewhat prosperus 
in my business. In 1800, May 9th John was born one hundred 
years after his Great Grand Father nothing very uncommon. . . . 
my determination to come to Ohio was so strong that I started 
with my Family in Comp[any] [with] B Whedan Esq and his Family 
all though out of health on the 9th of June 1805 with an Ox teem 
through Pennsylvania here I will say I found Mr. Whedan a very 
kind and helpfull Companion on the Road, we arived at Hudson on 
the 27 of July and was received with many tokens of kindness we did 
not come to a land of idleness neither did I expect it. Our ways were 
as prosperious as we could expect. I came with a determination to 
help to build up and be a help in the seport of religion and civil Order. 
We had some hardships to undergo but they appear greater in history 
than they were in reality. I was often calld to go into woods to make 
devisians of lands sometimes 60 or 70 Miles [from] home and be gone 
some times two week and sleep on the ground and that without in- 
jery. When we came to Ohio the Indians were more numorous than 
the white People but were very friendly and I beleave were a benifet 
rather than injery there [were] some Persons that seamed disposed 
to quarel with the Indians but I never had, they brought us Venson 
Turkeys Fish and the like sometimes wanted bread or meal more 
than they could pay for, but were faithfull to pay there debts. . . . 
My business went on very well and was somewhat prosperious in 
most of our conceirns friendly feelings were manfest the company 
that called on us was of the best kind the Missionarus of the Gos- 
pel and leading men traviling through the Cuntry call on us and I 
become acquaint with the business People and Ministers of the 
Gospel in all parts of the Reserve and some in Pennsilvany 1807 Feb 
13th Fredrick my 6th Son was born I do not think of anything to 
notice but the common blessings of health peace and prosperity 
for which I would ever acknowledge with thanksgiven I had a very 
pleasent and orderly family untill December 9th 1808 when all my 
earthly prospects appeared to be blasted My beloved Wife gave 
birth to an Infent Daughter that died in a few ours as my wife 
expresed [it] had a short pasage through time My wife followed in 



14 JOHN BROWN 

a few ours after these were days of affliction I was left with 
five (or six, including Levi Blakesley, my adopted son) small Chil- 
dren the oldes but a little one lO years old this scan all most makes 
my heart blead now these were the first that were ever buried in 
ground now ocupide at the Centre of Hudson." 

Owen Brown was subsequently married twice, his second 
wife being Sallie Root, and his third Mrs. Lucy Hinsdale. He 
was the father of ten sons and six daughters, the most distin- 
guished of them, next to John Brown, being Salmon Brown, 
who died in New Orleans September 6, 1833, a lawyer of 
standing, the editor of the New Orleans Bee, and a politician 
bitterly opposed to President Jackson and his methods. Owen 
Browm was early in life an Abolitionist, and in a quaint manu- 
script left the story of his becoming one. A Mr. Thomson, a 
Presbyterian or Congregational minister of Virginia, brought 
his slaves to New Canaan, Connecticut, for safety during the 
Revolution, In 1797 or 1798 he returned to move them back 
to Virginia, at which they rebelled, one married slave run- 
ning away. The owner declared that he would carry the wife 
and children back to bondage without him. The situation was 
complicated by Mr. Thomson's having been asked to preach. 
He was finally requested not to appear in the pulpit; the 
matter then came before the assembled church, and there 
was a vigorous debate In Mr. Thomson's presence. What 
happened is thus told by Owen Brown : ^ 

"An old man asked him if he could part man and wife contrary 
to their minds. Mr. T. said he married them himself, and did not 
enjoin obedience on the woman. He was asked if he did not consider 
marriage to be an institution of God ; he said he did. He was again 
asked why he did not do it in conformity of God's word. He ap- 
peared checked, and only said it was the custom. He was told that 
the blacks were free by the act of the Legislature of Connecticut ; 
he said he belonged to another State, and that Connecticut had no 
controle over his property. I think he did not get his property as 
he call[ed] it. Ever since, I have been an Abolitionist; I am so near 
the end of life I think I shall die an Abolitionist." 

And this he did, as consistently as he had lived a voluntary 
agent of the Underground Railroad, never failing to aid a 
fugitive slave who appealed to him for food and forwarding 
toward the North Star.^" Thus his son John had every incen- 
tive to follow in his footsteps. How deeply Ow^en Brown felt 





V 



OWEN BROWN 

Father of John Brown 



" "^ THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 15 

appears from his withdrawal of his long-sustained and active 
interest in Western Reserve College, when that institution 
refused admission to a colored man/^ He then became a 
supporter of Oberlin College, of which he was a trustee from 
November 24, 1835, until August 28, 1844/^ 

Of Ruth Mills, John Brown's mother, it is to be noted, 
besides her premature death when her famous son was but 
eight years old, that her ancestry goes as far back in the 
colonial records as does her husband's. The Mills family is 
descended from Peter Wouter van der Meulen, of Amsterdam, 
whose son Peter settled in Windsor, Connecticut. He refused 
to Anglicize his name, but his son Peter, born 1666, became 
plain Peter Mills. Of the next generation, the Rev. Gideon 
Mills graduated from Yale College, but died before the Revo- 
lution, in which his son. Lieutenant Gideon Mills, served well. 
When fifty-one years of age, in 1800, the latter removed to 
Ohio, five years before his daughter Ruth and her husband, 
Owen Brown, followed him into that wild territory. Through 
his maternal grandmother, Ruth Humphrey, John Brown 
of Osawatomie was connected with a well-known divine, the 
Rev. Luther Humphrey, and was cousin also to the Rev. Dr. 
Heman Humphrey, sometime president of Amherst College, 
as well as to the Rev. Nathan Brown, long a missionary in 
India and Japan. There was thus on both sides a family con- 
nection of which John Brown might w^ell be proud, that war- 
ranted, in later Kansas days, his introduction to a committee 
of the Massachusetts Legislature as a representative of the 
best type of old New England citizenship. It is undeniable, 
too, that the influence of his ancestry was a powerful one 
throughout Brown's entire life. In some respects, as has been 
often suggested, he seems to have belonged to the eighteenth 
rather than to the nineteenth century, if not to a still earlier 
one. It can hardly be doubted that, had he been brought face 
to face with his ancestors, there would have been discovered 
a marked resemblance in character, if not in looks; for the 
main traits which marked the frugal, sober-minded, religious, 
soil-tilling farmer-folk of New England were all in that de- 
scendant who, so far as history records, was the first member 
of the family to go to what is usually considered an infamous 
death, as he was the first American to be hanged for treason. 



i6 JOHN BROWN 

Of John Brown's boyhood but few incidents remain to be 
told ; his early maturity is, perhaps, partly a reason for this. 
For boys who at twelve assume such duties and responsibili- 
ties as were his, there is but a brief childhood. He seems to 
have had to his credit or discredit the usual number of rough 
pranks. There is a story that he tried to explode some powder 
under his step-mother, and that, when his father attempted 
to punish him for this oiTence, a sheepskin carefully tucked 
away in his clothes protected him from the force of the blows. 
Again, it is variously said that he precipitated his father, or 
his step-mother, from the hay-mow of the barn to the floor 
beneath, by placing loose planks over an opening and then 
enticing the victim across it. But these and even less authen- 
ticated stories emanate often from prejudiced sources,'^ and 
if John Brown was guilty of unduly rough or dangerous horse- 
play, it is a fact that he was always on the best of terms with 
his father, as their letters show, and with his step-mother. It 
is said of him that he was early one of the best Bible teachers 
available, and therefore in demand in the Sunday Schools of 
the communities in which he lived. To his steadfast perusal 
of the Bible is undoubtedly due most of the directness, the 
clearness and the force of his written English. It was, declared 
in after years his daughter, Ruth Brown Thompson, ^^ his 
favorite volume, "and he had such a perfect knowledge of it 
that when any person was reading it, he would correct the 
least mistake." His range of reading was, however, at no time 
wide ; his taste was for historical works. Franklin's writings, 
Rollin's Ancient History, /Fisop's Fables, Plutarch's Lives, 
a life of Oliver Cromwell, and one of Napoleon and his Mar- 
shals, all had their influence upon him. His Pilgrim's Progress 
he naturally knew well, and Baxter's Saints' Rest was to him 
a safe and sure guide to devout Christianity, while the works 
of Edwards and Witherspoon were always on his shelves. In 
all his letters, there is hardly a reference to any book save 
the Bible. 

As for John Brown's schooling, as his autobiography records, 
it was fitful and scanty. The public schools of a newly occu- 
pied region are not often of the best. The first one in Hudson 
was established in 1 80 1, in a log-house near the centre of the 
Hudson township, and it is probable that John Brown at- 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 17 

tended this school, as Owen Brown's home was in this vicinity. 
The Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, of New Haven, was a school- 
mate of Brown's at Tallmadge, Ohio, in 1808, in a school 
founded by Bacon's father. An old lady, years afterwards, 
when Bacon shortly before his death revisited Tallmadge, 
reminded him of a curious dialogue at a school exhibition 
between himself as William Penn and John Brown as Pi- 
zarro.^^ When a tall stripling, either in 1816 or 1819, Brown 
revisited Connecticut with his brother Salmon and another 
settler's son, Orson M. Oviatt, with the idea of going to 
Amherst College and entering the ministry. During his brief 
stay in the East, he attended the well-known school of the 
Rev. Moses Hallock at Plainfield, Massachusetts, and Morris 
Academy in Connecticut.^^ A son of Mr. Hallock, in 1859, 
remembered him as a "tall, sedate and dignified young man. 
He had been a tanner, and relinquished a prosperous business 
for the purpose of intellectual improvement. He brought with 
him a piece of sole leather about a foot square, which he him- 
self had tanned for seven years, to resole his boots. He had 
also a piece of sheepskin which he had tanned, and of which 
he cut some strips, about an eighth of an inch wide, for other 
students to pull upon." The schoolmaster confidently tried to 
snap one of these straps, but in vain, and his son long remem- 
bered "the very marked, yet kind, immovableness of the 
young man's [Brown's] face on seeing his father's defeat." " 
But an attack of inflammation of the eyes put an end to 
Brown's dream of a higher education, and he returned to 
Hudson and the tanning business, living in a cabin near the 
tan-yard, at first keeping bachelor's hall with Levi Blakeslee, 
his adopted brother. John Brown was early a remarkably 
good cook, with a strong liking for this part of housekeep- 
ing which lasted throughout his life.^^ The neatness of his 
kitchen was surpassed by that of no housewife, and the pains 
he took to sweep and sand the floor are still remembered. 

It was while he was living thus that there occurred another 
incident to confirm his opposition to slavery. To John Brown 
and Levi Blakeslee came a runaway slave begging for aid. He 
was at once taken into the cabin, where John Brown stood 
guard over him while Blakeslee, when evening had come, went 
up to the town for supplies. Suddenly the slave and his Sa- 



i8 JOHN BROWN 

maritan heard the noise of approaching horses. John Brown 
motioned to the slave to go out of the window and hide in the 
brush. This he did. Soon the alarm proved to have been occa- 
sioned only by neighbors returning from town, and Brown 
went out into the dark to look for the negro. " I found him 
behind a log," he said in telling the story, "and I heard his 
heart thumping before I reached him. At that I vowed eternal 
enmity to slavery." ^^ Another story of John Brown's kind- 
ness of heart probably belongs to this period. His uncle, 
Frederick Brown, then judge of Wadsworth County, obtained 
a requisition from Governor Trimble, of Ohio, on the Governor 
of New York for the arrest of a young horse thief, and gave it 
to his nephew in Hudson to serve. John Brown found the boy 
and arrested him. Then Brown managed, because it was a 
first offence and the boy was repentant, and because the peni- 
tentiary would ruin his character, to save him from that fate, 
and to have him, instead, indentured till his twenty-first year 
to the man whose horse he stole. He got the neighbors to go 
bond for the boy's good behavior during the period. This 
was done, the boy reformed, and died a respected citizen in 
old age.^'' These and other incidents would seem to show that 
when John Brown professed religion in 1816 and joined the 
Congregational Church, to which he was ever after so devoted, 
he had made up his mind to try to practise as well as to 
profess the doctrines of Christianity. 

Good cook that John Brown was, he had been having his 
bread baked by Mrs. Amos Lusk, a widow living near by. 
Soon he decided that it would be better if she moved into his 
log-cabin with her daughter and took charge of the entire 
housekeeping, now become serious by reason of the growth 
of his tanning business and the increase in the number of 
journeymen and apprentices. The propinquity of the young 
home-maker and of the " remarkably plain " daughter of Mrs. 
Lusk led promptly to matrimony. They were married June 
21, 1820, when the husband lacked nearly eleven months of 
being of age. If Dianthe Lusk was plain and rather short in 
stature, she attracted by her quiet, amiable disposition. As 
deeply religious as her husband, she was given to singing well, 
generally hymns and religious songs, was neat and cheerful, 
and without a marked sense of humor. In the twelve years of 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 19 

their married life, Dianthc gave birth to seven children, dying 
August 10, 1832, three days after the coming of a son. Of her 
other six children, five grew to manhood and womanhood, all 
of marked character and vigorous personality: John Brown, 
Jr., Jason, Owen, Ruth and Frederick, the last named meeting 
a cruel death in Kansas in his twenty-sixth year. Of these, 
Jason alone survives at this writing, at the age of eighty-six. 
Dianthe Lusk, too, could boast of an old colonial lineage, for 
her ancestry traced back to the famous Adams family of Mas- 
sachusetts. There was, however, a mental weakness in the Lusk 
family which manifested itself early in her married life, as 
it did in her two sisters.^^ In two of her sons, John Brown, 
Jr., and Frederick, there was also a disposition to insanity. 
Devoted as he was to his wife, John Brown ruled his home 
with a strong hand, in a way that seemed to some akin to 
cruelty; but his children and an overwhelming mass of evi- 
dence prove the contrary. He did not get on well with his 
brother-in-law, Milton Lusk, who refused to attend the wed- 
ding because John Brown the Puritan had asked him to visit 
his mother and sister on some other day than the Sabbath.-^ 
They were at no time congenial, though in later years Milton 
Lusk bore no ill-will to his brother-in-law ; yet he always 
disliked the rigor imposed upon his sister's household. But 
the Brown children were devoted to both parents, and revered 
always the memory of their mother. They remembered, too, 
when symptoms of mental illness appeared, the kindliness and 
tenderness with which the husband shielded and tended and 
watched over his wife. 

As to his children, John Brown at first believed in the use of 
the rod, and he was particularly anxious that they should not 
yield to the "habit of lying" which had worried him so much 
in his own boyhood. " Terribly severe " is the way his punish- 
ments were described, and he made no allowance for childish 
imaginings. Once when Jason, then not yet four years old, told 
of a dream he had had and insisted that it was the reality, his 
father thrashed him severely, albeit with tears in his eyes." 
But in later years, it is pleasant to record, John Brown, after 
travelling about the world, came to realize that there were 
other methods of dealing with children, and softened consider- 
ably, even expressing regret for his early theory and practice 



20 JOHN BROWN 

of punishments. There are instances in number of touching 
devotion to this or that child ; of his sitting up night after night 
with an ailing infant. Once he hurried to North Elba from 
Troy on the rumor that smallpox had broken out in a near-by 
village, in order that he might be on hand to nurse if the 
scourge entered his family. He nursed several of his children 
through scarlet fever without medical aid, and in consequence 
became in demand in other stricken homes in the neighbor- 
hood. " Whenever any of the family were sick, he did not often 
trust watchers to care for the sick ones, but sat up himself and 
was like a tender mother. At one time he sat up every night 
for two weeks, while mother was sick, for fear he would over- 
sleep if he went to bed, and the fire would go out, and she take 
cold. No one outside of his own family can ever know the 
strength and tenderness of his character," wrote Mrs. Ruth 
Brown Thompson in her reminiscences of her father. His 
character was not an unusual one in this respect; the combi- 
nation of iron discipline with extreme tenderness of heart is 
often the mark of deep affection and high purpose in men of 
power and rigid self-control, and so it was with him. Not 
unnaturally, his children reacted from "the very strict con- 
trol and Sunday School rules" under which they lived, and 
used, as Salmon puts it, " to carry on pretty high," as some of 
the neighbors who still live can tell the tale. 

Sabbath in the Brown family had all the horrors of the New 
England rest day of several generations ago. There were strict 
religious observances, and there was no playing and no pre- 
tence at playing. Visiting was discouraged, as well as receiving 
visits. The head of the family was not without humor, but as 
Fowler, the phrenologist, correctly said of him, his jokes were 
"more cutting than cute." He incHned to sarcasm, and "his 
words were as sharp as his eyes to those who did not please 
him." In the final drama at Harper's Ferry, Watson Brown 
said to his father: "The trouble is, you want your boys to be 
brave as tigers, and still afraid of you." "And that was per- 
fectly true" is Salmon Brown's confirmation of the remark. 
Similarly, John Brown wanted his children to be as true as 
steel, as honest as men and women possibly can be and as 
truthful, and yet afraid of him. As was often the case, the 
intense religious training given to his children in the broaden- 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 21 

ing period of the first half of the nineteenth century resulted 
in a reaction. All his sons were strangers to church-ties. In 
this their strong feeling in regard to slavery, to which they 
came naturally from grandfather and father, played a great 
part. Yet this dislike of slavery was never beaten into them ; 
nor is it true that John Brown ever forced a son into one of 
his campaigns. It is doubtful if he could often have com- 
manded such strong natures. Dislike of human bondage, as the 
children grew up, became as much a factor in the family's life 
as the natural desire for food and clothing and shelter. It was 
no more assumed than inculcated ; they hated it with a hatred 
greater in some cases than their wish to live. Whatever else 
may be said of the Brown family life, or of the father as a dis- 
ciplinarian, it is a fact that the children grew up into honorable 
men and women, not successful in accumulating worldly goods 
in any degree, but as illustrative of the homely virtues as their 
father and their grandfather. Temperate they all of them 
were, like their father, yet not all or always total abstainers. 
John Brown himself, though an abstainer after 1829, firmly 
believed that "a free use of pure wines in the country would 
do away with a great deal of intemperance, and that it was a 
good temperance work to make pure wine and use it." ^* For 
a time two of his sons devoted themselves to grape-growing 
for wine purposes, until they finally came to have scruples 
against it. 

Of John Brown's early life after his marriage there is, for- 
tunately, a reliable record. James Foreman, one of his jour- 
neymen in 1820, wrote down his recollections of his employer 
shortly after the latter's death in 1859,^^ for the benefit of 
Brown's first biographer, who did not, however, utilize them. 

'Tt was John Brown's fixed rule," wrote Mr. Foreman, "that 
his apprentices and journeymen must always attend church every 
Sunday, and family worship every morning. In the summer of 1824 
a journeyman of his stole from him a very fine calfskin. Brown dis- 
covered the deed, made the man confess, lectured him at length and 
then told him he would not prosecute him unless he left his place ; 
but, that, if he did leave, he should be prosecuted to the end of the 
law. 

"The journeyman staid about two months, through fear of pro- 
secution; and in the meantime all hands about the tannery and in 
the house were strictly forbidden speaking to him, not even to ask a 



22 JOHN BROWN 

question ; and I think a worse punishment could not have been set 
upon a poor human being than this was to him : But it reformed 
him and he afterward became a useful man. 

" In the fall of the same year his wife was taken sick under pecul- 
iar circumstances, and Brown started for the Dr. and some lady 
friends, from his residence ij miles to the centre of Hudson. On his 
way he espied two men tying up two bags of apples and rnaking 
ready to put them on their horses. Brown immediately tied his own 
horse, went to the men and made them empty their apples, own up 
to the theft, and settle up the matter before he attended to the case 
of his wife. Such was his strict integrity for honesty and justice." 

Once, Mr. Foreman remembered, Brown fell into a discus- 
sion with a Methodist minister, who, being flippant and fluent, 
seemed to talk the tanner down. 

" [Brown] afterward commented on the man's manners and said he 
should like a public debate with him. Soon after the preacher came 
to enquire whether Brown desired, as was reported, a public debate, 
and whether, also, if he had said the speaker was ' no gentleman, let 
alone a clergyman.' Brown replied : ' I did say you were no gentle- 
man. I said" more than that, sir.' 'What did you say, sir? ' enquired 
the preacher. 'I said, sir,' replied Brown, 'that it would take as 
many men like you to make a gentleman as it would take wrens to 
make a cock turkey ! ' The public debate, however, came off, con- 
ducted in questions and answers, Brown first to ask all his questions, 
which the other should answer and then the reverse. But John 
Brown's questions so exhausted and confused his opponent, that the 
latter retired without opening his side of the debate. ... So strict 
was he that his leather should be perfectly dry before sold, that a 
man might come ten miles for five pounds of sole leather and if the 
least particle of moisture could be detected in it he must go home 
without it. No compromise as to amount of dampness could be 
effected. ... He was jocose and mirthful, when the conversation 
did not turn on anything profane or vulgar, and the Bible was almost 
at his tongue's end. ... He considered it as much his duty to help 
a negro escape as it was to help catch a horse thief, and of a new 
settler . . . [his] first enquiry . . . was whether he was an observer 
of the Sabbath, opposed to slavery and a supporter of the gospel and 
common schools ; if so, all was right with him ; if not, he was looked 
upon by Brown with suspicion. In politics he was originally an 
Adams man and afterwards a Whig and I believe a strong one. Yet 
I do not believe the time ever was that he would have voted for 
Henry Clay, for the reason that he had fought a duel and owned 
slaves. . . '. His food was always plain and simple, all luxuries being 
dispensed with and not allowed in his family, and in the year 1830 
he rigidly adopted the teetotal temperance principle. 

" Hunting, gunning and fishing he had an abhorrence of as learn- 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 23 

ing men and boys to idle away their time and learn them lazy habits, 
and it was with the greatest reluctance that he would trust a man 
with a piece of leather who came after it with a gun on his shoulder. 
... He took great pains to inculcate general information among 
the people, good moral books and papers, and to establish a reading 
community." 

In May, 1825, despite the success of his Hudson tannery 
and his having built himself a substantial house the year 
before, John Brown moved his family to Richmond, Crawford 
County, Pennsylvania, near Meadville, where with note- 
worthy energy he had cleared tw^enty-five acres of timber 
lands, built a fine tannery, sunk vats, and had leather tan- 
ning in them all by the ist of October.^^ The virgin forests 
and cheap cost of transportation lured him to his new home. 
Here, like his father at Hudson, John Brown was of marked 
value to the new settlement at Richmond by his devotion to 
the cause of religion and civil order. He surveyed new roads, 
was instrumental in erecting school-houses, procuring preach- 
ers and "encouraging everything that would have a moral 
tendency." It became almost a proverb in Richmond, so Mr. 
Foreman records, to say of an aggressive man that he was 
"as enterprising and honest as John Brown, and as useful to 
the county." This removal of his family gave its young mem- 
bers just such a taste of pioneering as their father had had at 
Hudson, and was the first of ten migrations under the lead- 
ership of their restless head, prior to the emigration to Kansas 
of the eldest sons in 1854-55. In Richmond the family dwelt 
nearly ten years, until for business reasons the bread-winner 
felt himself compelled to return to Ohio."^ 

In the year 1828 John BroAvn brought into Crawford County 
the first blooded stock its settlers had ever seen. Being in- 
strumental in obtaining the first post-ofifice in that region, 
he received this same year the appointment of postmaster 
from President John Quincy Adams, January 7, serving untii 
May 27, 1835, when he left the State; and there are letters 
extant bearing his franks as postmaster of Randolph, as the 
new post-ofifice was called. The first school was held alternately 
in John Brown's home and that of a Delamater family, con- 
nections of Dianthe Lusk, the Delamater children boarding 
for the winter terms in Brown's home, and the Brown chil- 



24 JOHN BROWN 

dren spending the summer terms at the Delamaters', for 
a period of four years, only a few other children attending. 
George B. Delamater, one of the scholars, retained a vivid 
impression of the early winter breakfasts in the Brown family, 
"immediately after which Bibles were distributed, Brown 
requiring each one to read a given number of verses, himself 
leading ; then he would stand up and pray, grasping the back 
of the chair at the top and incHning slightly forw^ard," which 
solemn moment, so Salmon Brown remembers, the elder chil- 
dren frequently utilized for playing tricks on one another. 
Sunday religious exercises were at first held in Brown's barn. 
Of them Mr. Delamater says, "everything seemed fixed as 
fate by the inspiring presence of him whose every movement, 
however spontaneous, seemed to enforce conformity to his 
ideas of what must or must not be done. ... He was no 
scold, did nothing petulantly; but seemed to be simply an 
inspired paternal ruler ; controlling and providing for the circle 
of which he was the head," — testimony of value as showing 
that even at this early age Brown had the compelling power 
of masterful leadership. 

Here in Richmond the first great grief came into John 
Brown's life in the death of a four-year-old son, Frederick, on 
March 31, 1831, and the demise in August, 1832, of Dianthe 
Brown and her unnamed infant son who also had such a "short 
passage through time." '^ Their graves are still to be found 
near the old, now rebuilt, tannery, and are cared for and pro- 
tected out of regard for John Brown. Nearly a year later he 
was married for the second time, to Mary Anne Day,^" daugh- 
ter of Charles Day, of Whitehall, New York, who was then 
a resident of Troy township, Pennsylvania. Her father was 
a blacksmith, who had been fairly well-to-do, but had lost his 
property by endorsing notes, so that Mary Day grew up with 
narrow means and almost no schooling. For a time after the 
death of Dianthe Brown, Mary's elder sister went to John 
Brown's as housekeeper, and Mary, presently, was engaged to 
come there to spin. She was then a large, silent girl, only six- 
teen years of age. John Brown quickly grew fond of her, per- 
haps saw the staying powers in her, and one day gave her a 
letter offering marriage. She was so overcome that she dared 
not read it. Next morning she found courage to do so, and 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 25 

when she went down to the spring for water for the house, he 
followed her and she gave him her answer there. A woman of 
rugged physical health and even greater ruggedness of nature, 
she bore for her husband thirteen children within twenty-one 
years, of whom seven died in childhood, and two were killed 
in early manhood at Harper's Ferry. Besides the lives of the 
latter, Oliver and Watson, Mary Day Brown made cheerfully 
and willingly many other sacrifices for the cause to which her 
husband also gave his life, as will appear later. No one but a 
strong character could have borne uncomplainingly the hard- 
ships which fell to her lot, particularly in her bleak Adirondack 
home in the later years. But she was as truly of the stuff of 
which martyrs are made as was her husband — even if she had 
had less advantages and opportunities for learning and culture 
than he. If there ever was a family in which the mother did 
her full share and more of arduous labor, it was this one. No- 
thing but the complete faith he had in her abiUty to be both 
mother and guardian of his flock made possible for John Brown 
his long absences from home year after year, both when in 
business and when warring against slavery in Kansas and 
Virginia. And Mary Day Brown was a woman of few words, 
even after the catastrophe at Harper's Ferry. 

During part of the interval between Dianthe Brown's 
death and her husband's remarriage, John Brown boarded 
with Mr. Foreman, who had just married. Even in his first 
grief, Mr. Foreman remembers, John Brown had a deep 
interest in the welfare of his neighbors. Others remember 
Brown as the organizer of an Independent Congregational 
Society, which came into being on January ii, 1832, its arti- 
cles of faith being written out in his hand as clerk of the 
society. It is recalled, too, that besides being postmaster he 
had for some years the carrying of the mails between Mead- 
ville and Riceville, a distance of twenty miles. Politically, he 
was at this time an Adams man, and he was still as interested 
in the fugitive slave as he had been in Hudson. There was 
in the haymow of his barn a roughly boarded room, entered 
by a trap-door, and ventilated and equipped for the use of 
escaping slaves. The whole was always so cleverly concealed 
by hay that a man might stand on the trap-door and yet 
see no signs of the hiding-place. In striking contrast to John 



26 JOHN BROWN 

Brown's later development Into a man of disguises, assumed 
names and many plots, was his dislike of the Masonic orders. 
He became a member of a lodge while residing either in Hud- 
son or in Richmond, and for a while was an ardent disciple. 
Then, however, he rebelled and withdrew. "Somewhere," so 
John Brown, Jr., told the story in after years, "in an historical 
museum, I think, is the first firearm that father ever possessed. 
The way he came to get it was this: Father had been a Free 
Mason for years. You have read about the great excitement 
over the disappearance of Morgan, who had threatened to 
expose the secrets of Masonry? Well, father denounced the 
murder of Morgan in the hottest kind of terms. This was 
when we lived over in Pennsylvania. Father had occasion to go 
to Meadville. A mob bent on lynching him surrounded the 
hotel, but Landlord Smith enabled him to escape through a 
back entrance. Father then got a sort of pistol that was about 
half rifle, and he became very adept in its use, killing deer with 
it on several occasions." ^^ It was in September, 1826, that 
the country was so excited over the anti-Masonic revelations 
of William Morgan which resulted in his murder. 

After just ten years of residence in Richmond, John Brown 
removed to Franklin Mills, Portage County, Ohio, to go into 
the tanning business with Zenas Kent, a well-to-do business 
man of that town. In a letter written to him on April 24, 1835, 
John Brown thus details the financial distress he found him- 
self in, which no doubt accentuated his desire for a new field 
of activity: ^^ 

"Yours of the 14th was received by last Mail. I was disappointed 
in the extreme not to obtain the money I expected ; & I know of 
no possible way to get along without it. I had borrowed it for a few 
days to settle up a number of honorary debts which I could not 
leave unpaid and come away. It is utterly impossible to sell any- 
thing for ready cash or to collect debts. I expect Father to come out 
for cattle about the first of May and I wish you without fail to send 
it by him. It is now to late to think of sending it by mail. I was 
intending to turn everything I could into shingles as one way to real- 
ize cash in Ohio, before you wrote me about them. 25, dollars of the 
money I want is to enable me to carry that object into effect. ..." * 

* In spelling and punctuation these earlier letters are superior to the later 
epistles; the handwriting is by this time the familiar one, full of character and 
strength. 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 27 

The partnership of Kent & Brown was not destined to be of 
long duration, for the latter had no sooner completed the 
tannery at Franklin than it was rented by Marvin Kent, a 
son of the senior partner, even before the departments were 
ready for operation and the vats in place, so that the business 
of tanning hides was never actually carried on by the firm.^^ 
John Brown then secured a contract for the construction of 
part of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, from Franklin Mills 
to Akron, during which time he dealt chiefly with the Kents. 
It was a year later that John Brown began some land specu- 
lations which proved quite disastrous and did much to injure 
his standing and business credit. With a Mr. Thompson he 
purchased a farm of more than a hundred acres owned by a 
Mr. Haymaker, which then adjoined Franklin village (now 
the prosperous town of Kent), believing that the coming of 
the canal and other changes would make Franklin a great 
manufacturing town. For this farm there was paid $7000, 
mostly money borrowed of Heman Oviatt, who had acquired 
large means as a trader with the Indians, and of Frederick 
Wadsworth. The farm was quickly plotted by Brown as 
" Brown and Thompson's addition to Franklin Village." But 
he was far ahead of his time in this scheme, and within a 
couple of years the land was foreclosed by Oviatt and Wads- 
worth. This tract, crossed by three trunk-line railroads, is 
now of great value, containing as it does an island park, the 
shops of the Erie Railroad and some large manufactories. The 
Haymaker house in which Brown lived is still standing. 
About the same time, John Brown, with twenty-one other 
prominent men of Franklin, Ravenna and Akron, formed the 
Franklin Land company, and purchased of Zenas Kent and 
others the water-power, mills, lands, etc., in both the upper 
and lower Franklin villages. Through the cooperation of the 
canal company, the two water-powers were combined mid- 
way between the two villages. A new settlement was then 
laid out between both places, and would undoubtedly have 
been a successful enterprise, had the canal company lived up 
to its agreement. Instead, it drew off largely the waters of 
the Cuyahoga River, ostensibly for canal purposes, but in 
reality, in the opinion of John Brown and his partners, for the 
purpose of pushing Akron ahead at the expense of the new 



28 JOHN BROWN 

village, to which the Brown and Thompson addition was 
planned before the town itself was well under way. 

In these and other schemes John Brown became so deeply 
involved that he failed during the bad times of 1837, lost 
nearly all his property by assignment to his creditors, and 
was then not able to pay all his debts, some of which were 
never liquidated. His father also lost heavily through him. 
While he says in his autobiography that he "rarely failed in 
some good degree to effect the things he undertook," this can- 
not apply to his business affairs in the 1835 to 1845 period of 
his life, or even later, but must be taken as referring to those 
philanthropic or public-spirited undertakings in which he had 
won a name for himself a short time previous to that story of 
his life. In 1842 he was even compelled to go through bank- 
ruptcy. Naturally, all this greatly damaged Brown's business 
standing, and created with some people who had lost money 
through him that doubt of his integrity which so often follows 
the loss of money through another. But the final verdict in 
the vicinity of Franklin was summed up recently by the late 
Marvin Kent. To him Brown was at this early period a man 
of "fast, stubborn and strenuous convictions that nothing 
short of a mental rebirth could ever have altered;" a "man of 
ordinary calibre with a propensity to business failure in what- 
ever he attempted." * There is no allegation of dishonesty, 
despite the unpaid accounts and protested notes still on 
the books of Marvin Kent and his father. Heman Oviatt, of 
Richfield, Ohio, who lent John Brown money and became in- 
volved in lawsuits in consequence, testified to his integrity, 
and so do many others. But there can be no question that 
after leaving Richmond, Pennsylvania, he was anything but 
successful in business, and his affairs became so involved as 
to make it a matter of regret that he could not have devoted 
himself exclusively to tanning and farming in Richmond. To 
his son, John Brown, Jr., he in after years explained his mis- 
fortunes by saying that these grew out of one root — doing 
business on credit.^' "Instead of being thoroughly imbued 
with the doctrine of pay as you go, I started out in life with 

* "It is a Brown trait to be migratory, sanguine about what they think they 
can do, to speculate, to go into debt, and to make a good many failures." — Jason 
Brown, December 28, 1908. 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 29 

the Idea that nothing could be done without capital, and that 
a poor man must use his credit and borrow ; and this pernicious 
notion has been the rock on which I, as well as many others, 
have split. The practical effect of this false doctrine has been 
to keep me like a toad under a harrow most of my business 
life. Running into debt includes so much evil that I hope all 
my children will shun it as they would a pestilence." The 
purchase of four farms on credit seems to have been a chief 
cause of Brown's collapse. ^^ Three of these Franklin farms 
were said to be worth twenty thousand dollars before the 
financial crash of 1837. 

Brown quitted Franklin Mills in 1837, returning with his 
family to Hudson, but only for a brief period. He seems to 
have alternated between the two places until 1841. One of 
his ventures at this period was breeding race-horses. In 1838 
began his long years of travelling about the country. His first 
recorded visit to New York, after reaching manhood, was on 
December 5, 1838, when he drove some cattle from Ohio to 
Connecticut. "My unceasing & anxious care for the present 
and everlasting welfare of every one of my family seems to be 
threefold as I get seperated farther and farther from them," he 
wrote home from the metropolis. ^^ On this trip he negotiated 
for the agency of a New York steel scythes house, and on 
the 18 th of January, at West Hartford, Connecticut, made 
a purchase of ten Saxony sheep for one hundred and thirty 
dollars, — this being the beginning of his long career as John 
Brown the Shepherd. ^^ Other purchases of Saxony sheep fol- 
low in quick succession, according to the entries in the first of 
a series of notebooks which often did duty as rough diaries. 
The sheep he seems to have taken by boat to Albany and 
driven thence to Ohio; his notebook teems at this time with 
hints for the care of sheep and such quaint entries as the fol- 
lowing: "Deacon Abel Hinsdale left off entirely the use of 
Tobacco at the age of 66 now 73 & has used none since that 
time. No ba[d] consequnses have followed. Qery When will a 
man become to old to leave off any bad habit." 

In June, 1839, when his family was again in Franklin Mills, 
he made another trip to the East on cattle business, the fol- 
lowing being a typical home letter of this, for him, so trying 
and disastrous period: " 



30 JOHN BROWN 

Newhartford 1 2th June 1839 

My Dear wife & children 

I write to let you know that I am in comfortable health & that I 
expect to be on my way home in the course of a week should nothing 
befall me If I am longer detained I will write you again. The cattle 
business has succeeded about as I expected, but I am now some what 
in fear that I shall fail of getting the money I expected on the loan. 
Should that be the will of Providence I know of no other way but 
we must consider ourselves verry poor for our debts must be paid, 
if paid at a sacrifise. Should that happen (though it may not) I hope 
God who is rich in mercy will grant us all grace to conform to our 
circumstances with cheerfulness & true resignation. I want to see 
each of my dear family verry much but must wait Gods time. Try 
all of you to do the best you can, and do not one of you be discour- 
aged, tomorrow may be a much brighter day. Cease not to ask Gods 
blessing on yourselves and me. Keep this letter wholly to yourselves, 
excepting that I expect to start for home soon, and that I did not 
write confidently about my success should anyone enquire Edward 
is well, & Owen Mills. You may shew this to my Father, but to no 
one else. 

I am not without great hopes of getting relief I would not have 
you understand, but things have looked more unfavourable for a few 
days. I think I shall write you again before I start. Earnestly com- 
mending you every one to God, and to his mercy, which endureth 
forever, I remain your affectionate husband and father 

John Brown 

The friends here I believe are all well. 

J. B. 

Three days after writing this letter, John Brown received 
from the New England Woolen Company, at Rockville, Con- 
necticut, the sum of twenty-eight hundred dollars through 
its agent, George Kellogg, for the purchase of wool, which 
money, regrettably enough, he pledged for his own benefit and 
was then unable to redeem. ^^ Fortunately for him, the Com- 
pany exercised leniency toward him, in return for which 
Brown promised, in 1842, after having passed through bank- 
ruptcy, to pay the money from time to time, with interest, as 
Divine Providence might enable him to do. This moral obli- 
gation he freely recognized, as will appear from the follow- 
ing letter to Mr. Kellogg, written in 1840, when Brown was 
temporarily in Hudson again, and in such distressing cir- 
cumstances that he had not the means to pay the postage for 
forwarding two letters from Mr. Kellogg which had been 
sent to him at Franklin Mills: ^^ 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 31 

" That means are so very limited is in consequence of my being 
left penyless for the time being, by the assignment and disposal of 
my property with no less than a family of ten children to provide for, 
the sickness of my wife and three of my oldest children since that 
time, and the most severe pressure generally for want of money ever 
known in this Country. Specie is almost out of the question and no- 
thing but specie will pay our postage. ... I learned a good while 
after the delivery of the Flour and Wool, to my further mortification 
and sorrow that they had not been forwarded when I expected, but 
was assured they should be immediately. I hope they have been 
received safe, and I most earnestly hope that the Devine Providence 
will yet enable me to make you full amends for all the wrong I have 
done, and to give you and my abused friend Whitman (whose name 
I feel_ ashamed to mention) some evidence that the injury I have 
occasioned was not premeditated and intentional at least." 

In pledging himself to pay, John Brown promised to prove 
"the sincerity of my past professions, when legally free to act 
as I choose." ^o At his death in 1859, this debt like many 
another was still unpaid, and John Brown bequeathed fifty 
dollars toward its payment by his last will and testament. 
It was not only that he was visionary as a business man, but 
that he developed the fatal tendency to speculate, doubtless 
an outgrowth of his restlessness and the usual desire of the 
bankrupt for a sudden coup to restore his fortunes. 

In the intervals of sheep and cattle trading, he and his 
father conceived the idea in 1840 of taking up some of the 
Virginia (now in Doddridge and Tyler counties of West Vir- 
ginia) land belonging to Oberlin College. He appeared April i, 
1840, before a committee of Oberlin trustees and opened nego- 
tiations with it for the survey and purchase of some of the 
Virginia possessions. ^i Two days later, the full board con- 
sidered a letter from John Brown in which he olTered "to 
visit, survey and make the necessary investigation respecting 
boundaries, etc, of those lands, for one dollar per day, and a 
modest allowance for necessary expenses." This communica- 
tion also stated frankly that this was to be a preliminary step 
towards locating his family upon the lands, "should the open- 
ing prove a favorable one." The trustees promptly voted 
to accept the offer, and the treasurer was ordered to furnish 
John Brown with "a commission & needful outfit." This 
was promptly done the same day, and by the 27th of April, 
Brown thus wrote from Ripley, Virginia, to his wife and chil- 



32 JOHN BROWN 

dren: "I have seen the spot where, if it be the will of Provi- 
dence, I hope one day to live with my family." He liked the 
country as well as he had expected to, "and its inhabitants 
rather better." Were they, he believed, "as resolute and in- 
dustrious as the Northern people, and did they understand 
how to manage as well, they would become rich; but they are 
not generally so." That John Brown did not subsequently 
settle on these Virginia lands is not, however, to be charged 
to the will of Providence, but to himself. His surveys and 
reports were duly received by the Oberlin trustees on July 
14, 1840, and on August 11 they voted to address a letter 
to him on the subject. Through his own fault, however, nego- 
tiations dragged so that the whole plan fell through. This 
appears from John Brown's letters to Levi Burnell, the trea- 
surer of Oberlin, who had duly notified him that the Pruden- 
tial Committee of the trustees had been authorized by the 
board to perfect negotiations and convey to "Brother John 
Brown of Hudson One Thousand acres of our Virginia Land 
on conditions suggested in the correspondence . . . between 
him and the Committee." On October 20, Mr. Burnell wrote 
to Owen Brown asking for the status of the negotiations. He 
received no answer from John Brown until January 2, 1841. 
This reply shows that the latter had been vacillating through- 
out the fall as to whether he should or should not move to 
Virginia, and runs in part thus: 

" I should have written you before but my time has been com- 
pletely taken up, and owing to a variety of circumstances I have 
sometimes allmost given up the idea of going to the south at all ; but 
after long reflection, and consultation about it, I feel prepared to 
say definitely that I expect Providence willing to accept the pro- 
posal of your Board, and that I shall want every thing understood, 
and aranged as nearly as may be, for my removal In the next Spring. 
I would here say that I shall expect to receive a thousand acres of 
land in a body that will Includ a living spring of water dischargeing 
itself at a heighth sufficient to accommodate a tanery as I shall 
expect to pursue that business on the small scale if I go. It is my 
regular occupation. I mentioned several such springs in my report, 
but found them very scarce." 

Meanwhile, the college had experienced a change of heart, 
apparently, because of Brown's procrastination, as appears 
from his letter of Februarys, 1841, to Mr. Burnell: 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 33 

Hudson 5th Feby 1841 

Levi Burnell Esqr 

Dr Sr: I have just returned from a journey to Pa, and have read 
yours of 20th Jany, 8c must say that I am somewhat disappointed 
in the information which it brings ; & considering all that has passed, 
that on the part of the Institution I had not been called upon to 
decide positively nor even advised of any hurry for a more definite 
answer; & that on my part I had never intimated any other than an 
intention to accept the offer made; nor called for my pay, I should 
think your Committee would have done nearer the thing that is 
right had they at least signified their wish to know my determina- 
tion, before putting it out of their power to perform what they had 
engaged. _ Probably I was not so prompt in makeing up my mind 
fully, & in communicating my determination as I had ought to 
be, & if Providence intends to defeat my plans there is no doubt 
the best of reasons for it, & we will rejoice that he who directs the 
steps of men knows perfectly well how to direct them; & will most 
assuredly make his counsel to stand. A failure of the consideration 
I do not so much regard as the derangement of my plan of future 
opperations. If the Virginia lands are, or are not disposed of, I wish 
you would give me the earliest information, & in the event of their 
still remaining on hand I suppose it not unreasonable for me still 
to expect a fulfillment of the offer on the part of the Institution. 
Should the land be conveyed away perhaps your Committee or 
some of the friends might still be instrumental in getting me an 
employment at the south. Please write me as soon as you have 
any information to give 

Respectfully your friend 

John Brown. 

To this letter no answer was returned. On March 26, 
Brown again wrote from Hudson asking whether the lands 
had been sold. If the committee no longer wished to nego- 
tiate with him, they need only say so frankly and send him 
thirty dollars (for which he had waited nearly a year), 
upon receipt of which he would "consider the institution 
discharged from all further obligation." Thus ended the first 
plan for an exodus of the John Brown family. 

As a result of this disappointment, Brown was compelled 
to turn to sheep-herding, taking charge in the spring of 1841 
of the flocks of Captain Oviatt at Richfield, Ohio, and speed- 
ily becoming known as a remarkable shepherd, able to tell 
at a glance the presence within his flock of a strange animal. 
This partnership arrangement proving satisfactory, Brown 
again moved his family, in 1842, to Richfield, where he had 



34 JOHN BROWN 

the great misfortune to lose, in 1843, four of his children, aged 
respectively, nine, six, three and one years, three of them 
being buried at one time, — a crushing family calamity. 
The beginning of the family's stay in Richfield was marked, 
too, by Brown's discharge as a bankrupt, stripped of every- 
thing but a few articles which the court had decided on Sep- 
tember 28, 1842, were absolutely necessary to the maintenance 
of the family, — among them eleven Bibles and Testaments, 
one volume entitled 'Beauties of the Bible,' one 'Church 
Member's Guide,' besides two mares, two cows, two hogs, 
three lambs, nineteen hens, seven sheep, and, last of all, three 
pocket knives valued at 373^ cents."*- Gradually, Brown be- 
came well known as a winner of prizes for sheep and cattle 
at the annual fairs of Summit County, and before his removal 
from Richfield to Akron, April 10, 1844, he had established 
a tannery which, at the beginning of that year, was unable 
to keep up with the business ofTered to it. This change of 
residence was due to the establishment of a new business 
partnership, the longest and the final one of John Brown's 
career. It was, to quote him:^^ 

" a copartnership with Simon Perkins, Jr., of Akron, with a view to 
carry on the sheep business extensively. He is to furnish all the feed 
and shelter for wintering, as a set-off against our taking all the care 
of the flock. All other expenses we are to share equally, and to divide 
the profits equally. This arrangement will reduce our cash rents at 
least $250 yearly, and save our hiring help in haying. We expect 
to keep the Captain Oviatt farm for pasturing, but my family will 
go into a very good house belonging to Mr. Perkins, — say from a 
half a mile to a mile out of Akron. I think this is the most com- 
fortable and most favorable arrangement of my worldly concerns 
that I ever had, and calculated to afford us more leisure for im- 
provement, by day and by night, than any other. I do hope that 
God has enabled us to make it in mercy to us, and not that he 
should send leanness into our souls. . . . This, I think, will be con- 
sidered no mean alliance for our family, and I most earnestly hope 
they will have wisdom given to make the most of it. It is certainly 
indorsing the poor bankrupt and his family, three of whom were 
but recently in Akron jail, in a manner quite unexpected, and proves 
that notwithstanding we have been a company of ' Belted Knights,' 
our industrious and steady endeavors to maintain our integrity 
and our character have not been wholly overlooked. Mr. Perkins 
is perfectly advised of our poverty, and the times that have passed 
over us." 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 35 

John Brown was within bounds in thus exulting; the most 
trying financial periods of his life were now behind him, even 
though the Perkins partnership resulted eventually in severe 
losses and dissolution. At least it was a connection with a 
high-minded and prosperous man, and it lasted ten years. 
When it was over, the partners were still friends, but Mr. 
Perkins did not retain a high opinion of John Brown's ability 
or sagacity as a business man. 

It was a lovely neighborhood, this about Akron, to which 
Brown now removed his family. They occupied a cottage 
on what is still known as Perkins Hill, near Simon Perkins's 
own home, with an extended and charming view over hill 
and dale, — an ideal sheep country, and a location which 
must have attracted any one save a predisposed wanderer. 
Here the family life went on smoothly, though not without 
its tragedies, notably the death of his daughter Amelia, acci- 
dentally scalded to death through the carelessness of an elder 
sister. This brought forth from the afflicted father, who was 
absent in Springfield, the following letter:"'' 

„ , , , . Springfield 8th Nov 1846 

babbath evening 

My Dear afflicted wife & children 

I yesterday at night returned after an absence of several days from 
this place & am uterly unable to give any expression of my feelings 
on hearing of the dreadful news contained in Owens letter of the 
30th & Mr. Perkins of the 31st Oct. I seem to be struck almost 
dumb. 

One more dear little feeble child I am to meet no more till the 
dead small & great shall stand before God. This is a bitter cup 
indeed, but blessed be God : a brighter dav shall dawn ; & let us not 
sorrow asthose that have no hope. Oh that we that remain, had 
wisdom wisely to consider ; & to keep in view our latter end. Divine 
Providence seems to lay a heavy burden ; & responsibility on you 
my dear Mary; but I trust you will be enabled to bear it in some 
measure as you ought. I exceedingly regret that I am unable to 
return, & be present to share your trials with you : but anxious as I 
am to be once more at home I do not feel at liberty to return yet. 
I hope to be able to get away before verry long; but cannot say 
when. I trust that none of you will feel disposed to cast an unrea- 
sonable blame on my dear Ruth on account of the dreadful trial we 
are called [to] suffer; for if the want of proper care in each, & all of 
us has not been attended with fatal consequenses it is no thanks 
to us. If I had a right sence of my habitual neglect of my familys 



36 JOHN BROWN 

Eternal interests; I should probably go crazy. I humbly hope this 
dreadful afflictive Providence will lead us all more properly to ap- 
preciate the amazeing, unforseen, untold, consequences; that hang 
upon the right or wrong doing of things seemingly of trifling account. 
Who can tell or comprehend the vast results for good, or for evil ; 
that are to follow the saying of one little word. Evrything worthy 
of being done at all ; is worthy of being done in good earnest, & in the 
best possible manner. We are in midling health & expect to write 
some of you again soon. Our warmest thanks to our kind friends 
Mr. & Mrs. Perkins & family. From your affectionate husband, & 
father 

John Brown 

While Brown's self-accusation of "habitual neglect" is 
no more to be borne out than his father's charging himself 
with a wasted life, it is true that some of his neighbors won- 
dered that he did not give more time to his family. That 
Akron home he ruled, as he did the later one at Springfield, 
with iron firmness and complete mastery, and as long as the 
children were with him they were under strict discipline, 
although the cane figured now but little. This was a relief to 
him as well as to his sons, for it is related of him that after 
he had given only a certain part of some blows he meant to 
bestow, he gave his whip to his son and bade him strike his 
father. ^^ Yet he exacted loyalty of his children as he did 
fealty from his animals. It is a widely believed story in Akron 
to this day that John Bro\vn once shot — to the horror of 
the children — a valuable shepherd dog, because it was so 
fond of the Perkins children as to be unwilling to stay at 
home. It is similarly narrated that he compelled his wife to 
ride to church with him on a pillion on a young and unbroken 
horse he wished to tame, with the result that she was twice 
thrown. ^^ One thing is beyond doubt: but little reference 
to his children's schooling appears in his letters, if we except 
those written to his daughter Ruth while she was aw^ay at 
school. Only John Brown, Jr., obtained special educational 
advantages. 

While the family life flowed on in this wise, the aftermath 
of its head's business failure remained to plague him in the 
shape of many lawsuits. On the records of the Portage 
County Court of Common Pleas at Ravenna, Ohio, are no 
less than twenty-one lawsuits in which John Brown figured 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 37 

as defendant during the years from 1820 to 1845/^ Of these, 
thirteen were actions brought to recover money loaned on 
promissory notes either to Brown singly or in company with 
others. The remaining suits were mostly for claims for wages 
or payments due, or for non-fulfilment of contracts. Judg- 
ment against Brown was once entered by his consent for a 
nominal sum, and another case was an amicable suit in debt. 
In ten other cases he was successfully sued and judgments 
were obtained against him individually or jointly with others. 
In three cases those who sued him were "non-suited" as 
being without real cause for action, and two other cases were 
settled out of court. Four cases Brown won, among them 
being a suit for damages for false arrest and assault and bat- 
tery, brought by an alleged horse-thief because Brown and 
other citizens had aided a constable in arresting him. A num- 
ber of these suits grew out of Brown's failure and his real 
estate speculations. A serious litigation was an action brought 
by the Bank of Wooster to recover on a bill of exchange drawn 
by Brown and others on the Leather Manufacturers Bank of 
New York, and repudiated by that institution on the ground 
that Brown and his associates had no money in the bank. 
During the suit the original amount claimed was rapidly re- 
duced, and when the judgment against Brown and his associ- 
ates was rendered, it was for $917,65. In June, 1842, Brown 
was sued by Tertius Wadsworth and Joseph Wells, in partner- 
ship with whom he had been buying and driving cattle to 
Connecticut. In 1845, Daniel C. Gaylord, who several times 
had sued Brown, succeeded in compelling Brown and his as- 
sociates to convey to him certain Franklin lands which they 
had contracted to sell, but the title for which they refused 
to convey. The court upheld Gaylord's claim. The only case 
in which Brown figured as plaintiff was settled out of court 
in his favor. 

But the most important suit of Brown's business life, and 
the one which has been oftenest cited to injure his business 
reputation, was a complicated one which grew out of one 
of these Ravenna cases. *^ On July 11, 1836, he applied to 
Heman Oviatt, Frederick Brown, Joshua Stow and three 
brothers of the name of Wetmore, to become security for him 
on a note to the Western Reserve Bank for $6000. The note 



38 JOHN BROWN 

not being paid, the bank sued and obtained judgment against 
all of them in May, 1837, and on August 2, 1837, they all 
gave their joint judgment bond to the bank, payable in sixty 
days. This not being paid, the bank again sued, and, an 
execution being issued, Heman Oviatt was compelled to pay 
the bank in full. He then in turn sued John Brown and 
his fellow endorsers. The litigation which followed was 
greatly complicated by Brown's actions in connection with 
a piece of property known as Westlands, for which he had at 
first not the title, but a penal bond of conveyance. Brown 
gave this bond to Oviatt as collateral for Oviatt's having en- 
dorsed the judgment bond to the bank. When the deed for 
the Westlands property was duly given to Brown, he recorded 
it without notifying Oviatt of this action. Later, he mortgaged 
this property to two men, again without the knowledge of 
Heman Oviatt. Meanwhile Daniel C. Gaylord had recovered 
judgment against Brown in another transaction, and to sat- 
isfy it, caused the sale of Westlands by the sheriff. At John 
Brown's request, Amos P. Chamberlain, heretofore a warm 
friend and business associate of Brown's, bought in the pro- 
perty at the sheriff's sale, doubtless with the idea that Brown 
would presently find the money to buy it back for himself. 
But as soon as Oviatt was compelled to pay off the judgment 
bond at the Western Reserve Bank, he naturally wished to 
reimburse himself by the penal bond of conveyance of West- 
lands, which, he felt, gave him the title to the property. Find- 
ing that, through the land transactions already related, the 
penal bond had become valueless, he brought suit to have 
the sale of Westlands to Chamberlain set aside as fraudulent. 
The Supreme Court of Ohio held that Chamberlain had a 
rightful title and dismissed the suit. John Brown himself was 
not directly sued by Oviatt, being, to use a lawyer's term, 
"legally safe" throughout the entire transaction. From the 
point of view of probity and fair play he does not, however, 
escape criticism. He was morally bound to reimburse those 
who had aided him to obtain the money from the bank and 
had suffered thereby. Even after this lapse of years, his action 
in secretly recording the transfer of the land and then mort- 
gaging it bears an unpleasant aspect. It is quite probable that 
this complication was due to the great confusion of Brown's 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 39 

affairs, and his own poor business head. Moreover, it may 
well be that in due course Oviatt and the other securities 
were repaid in full by Brown during his period of prosperity 
with Air. Perkins. Certainly, as already stated, Heman Oviatt 
bore Brown no grudge in after years. On the other hand, 
Brown may have taken advantage of the bankruptcy pro- 
ceedings to escape liability for these debts. 

The story of this case does not, however, end here. John 
Brown refused for a time to give up Westlands to Amos Cham- 
berlain, believing that he had the right to pasture his cattle 
there temporarily, and still, apparently, thinking that Cham- 
berlain had purchased the farm not for occupancy but for 
the purpose of turning it back to him. After having repeat- 
edly summoned Chamberlain for trespass on the land which 
Chamberlain had actually purchased, John Brown and his 
sons held a shanty on the place by force of arms until com- 
pelled to desist by the arrival of the sheriff summoned by 
Chamberlain. According to the Chamberlain family, John 
Brown ordered his sons to shoot Chamberlain if he set foot 
on the farm, — a statement vigorously denied by John Brown, 
Jr. Jason Brown recollects that "father put us all in the 
cabin on the farm with some old-fashioned muskets and we 
stayed in it night and day. Then Mr. Chamberlain sued 
father and sent a constable and his posse to drive us out. 
We showed them our guns. Then he got the sheriff of Port- 
age County to come out and arrest us. Of course we could 
not resist the sheriff." Finally the sheriff arrested John Brown 
and two sons, John and Owen, who were thereupon placed 
in the Akron jail. Chamberlain, having destroyed the shanty 
which Brown had occupied and obtained possession of the 
land, allowed the case to drop, and Brown and his sons were 
released. ^^ 

Fortunately for John Brown's side of the case, there has 
just come to light a letter he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain in 
order to prevent, if possible, the carrying on of a long litigation. 
It records the spirit in which John Brown acted, and proves 
him to have been sincerely of the opinion that he had been 
gravely wronged, and that, in holding his farm as he did, Mr. 
Chamberlain not only injured Brown, but also the latter's 
innocent creditors. No one can maintain, after the perusal 



40 JOHN BROWN 

of this communication, that Brown was unreasoning in the 
matter, or that he was deliberately trying to defraud a neigh- 
bor of land righteously purchased. It is altogether likely that 
if similar documents in regard to the other cases cited, which 
appear, on the surface, to make against John Brown's probity, 
could be found, these other entanglements would also be 
susceptible of a far better interpretation. The letter to Mr. 
Chamberlain, offering peace or arbitration before war, reads 
as follows : '*' 

Hudson 27th April 1841 
Mr. Amos Chamberlain 

Dear Sir 

I was yesterday makeing preparation for the commencement 
and vigorous prosecution of a tedious, distressing, wasteing, and 
long protracted war, but after hearing by my son of some remarks 
you made to him I am induced before I proceed any further in the 
way of hostile preparation: to stop and make one more earnest 
effort for Peace And let me begin by assureing you that notwith- 
standing I feel myself to be deeply and sorely injured by you, (with- 
out even the shadow of a provocation on my part to tempt you 
to begin as you did last October;) I have no conciousness of wish 
to injure either yourself or any of your family nor to interfere with 
your happiness, no not even to value of one hair of your head. I 
perfectly well remember the uniform good understanding and good 
feeling which had ever (previous to last fall) existed between us 
from our youth. I have not forgotten the days of cheerful labour 
which we have performed together, nor the acts of mutual kindness 
and accomodation which have passed between us. I can assure you 
that I ever have been and still am your honest, hearty friend. I 
have looked with sincere gratification uppon your steady growing 
prosperity, and flattering prospects of your young family. I have 
made your happiness and prosperity my own instead of feeling 
envious at your success. When I antisipated a return to Hudson 
with my family I expected great satisfaction from again haveing 
you for a neighbour. This is true whatever you may think of me, or 
whatever representation you may make of me to others. And now 
I ask you why will you trample on the rights of your friend and of his 
numerous family? Is it because he is poor? Why will you kneed- 
lessly make yourself the means of depriveing all my honest creditors 
of their Just due? Ought not my property if it must be sacrifised to 
fall into the hands of honest and some of them poor and suffering 
Creditors? Will God smile on the gains which you may acquire at 
the expence of suffering families deprived of their honest dues? And 
let me here ask Have you since you bid off that farm felt the same 
inward peace and conciousness of right you had before felt? I do 
not believe you have, and for this plain reason that you have been 



THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 41 

industrious in circulateing evil reports of me (as I believe) in order to 
prevent the community from enquiring into your motives and con- 
duct. This is perfectly natural, and no new thing under the sun. If 
it could be made to appear that Naboth the Jezreelite had blas- 
phemed God and the King, then it would be perfectly right for Ahab 
to possess his vineyard. So reasoned wicked men thousands of years 
ago. I ask my old friend again is your path a path of peace? does 
it promise peace? I have two definite things to offer you once and 
for all. One is that you take ample security of Seth Thompson for 
what you have paid and for what you may have to pay (which 
D. C. Gaylord has ever wickedly refused) and release my farm and 
thereby provide for yourself an honorable and secure retreat out of 
the strife and perplexity and restore you to peace with your friends 
and with yourself. The other is that if you do not like that offer, 
that you submit the matter to disinterested, discreet, and good men 
to say what is just and honest between us. 

You may ask why do not you go to Thompson for your relief. I 
answer that I should do so at once, but I cannot recover anything of 
Thompson but the face of the note and interest, nothing for all the 
costs, and expences, and penalties and sacrifise of my property. 
All Thompson is either morally or legally bound to pay is the note 
and interest. He is an inocent and honest debtor and when in his low 
state of health, and the extreme pressure he could not pay the money 
promptly came forward [and] offered his land as security. That 
security is still kept for the purpose, as I positively know any state- 
ments to the contrary notwithstanding. 

I now ask you to read this letter calmly, and patiently, and often, 
and show it to your neighbours, and friends, such as Mr. Zina Post 
and many other worthy men and advise with them before you at- 
tempt to force your way any further. I ask you to make it your first 
business and give me without delay your final determination in 
regard to it. 

Respectfully your friend 

John Brown. 

This appeal to reason and friendliness ought to have soft- 
ened Mr. Chamberlain's heart. No one now knows just what 
the result was; but since there is no evidence of a "tedious, 
distressing, wasteing, and long protracted war" between the 
neighbors, it is likely that it had its effect. At any rate, it 
closes a chapter of John Brown's business life which, besides 
occasioning him deep and poignant distress, left its marks 
upon him. Had he not, however, been withal a strong, seri- 
ous and fundamentally honest character, he must have been 
completely wrecked upon the shoals out of which, with Mr. 
Perkins's aid, he was now to find his way. 



CHAPTER II 
"HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT" 

When was it that John Brown, practical shepherd, tanner, 
farmer, surveyor, cattle expert, real estate speculator and 
wool-merchant, first conceived what he calls in his autobio- 
graphy "his greatest or principal object" in life — the forci- 
ble overthrow of slavery in his native land? The question 
is not an idle one, since the object adopted as the magnetic 
needle to guide his destiny eventually resulted in the rousing 
of a nation to its smallest hamlet, and beyond doubt pre- 
cipitated the bloody civil war which others besides John 
Brown clearly foresaw. The mystery of individuality does 
not lose anything of its spell with the passage of time; in 
the case of this strongly marked character, there is nothing 
concerning it of greater interest than the transformation of 
the simple guardian of flocks and tiller of the soil. Spartan 
in his rugged simplicity of living, into an arch-plotter, a 
man of many disguises, a belligerent pioneer, a fugitive be- 
fore the law at one moment and an assailant of a sovereign 
government in the next. Psychologists must find in such an 
evolution of spirit a field for inquiry and speculation without 
end. Why should one who so hated the profession of arms be 
the first to take it up in order to free the slave from his chains? 
What was there in the humdrum life of an Ohio farmer to 
cause him to espouse the role of a border-chieftain in the 
middle of the nineteenth century? From what midnight star 
did this shepherd draw his inspiration to go forth and kill? 
What was there in the process of tanning to make a man who 
had never seen blood spilt in anger ready to blot out the lives 
of other beings whose chief crime was that they diff"ered with 
him as to the righteousness of human bondage? Why should 
the restless iron spirit of the Roundhead suddenly have mani- 
fested itself in this prosaic seller of town lots when he had 
spent more than five decades in peace and quiet? Doubtless 
the answer to some of these questions must be left to the new 
science which would plot and chart the soul, and measure to 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 43 

the hundredth of a degree each quivering emotion. But the 
historian may properly inquire when it was that the "greatest 
or principal object" of this militant reformer's life first began 
to manifest itself in his acts and deeds. 

John Brown's horror of the South's "peculiar institution," 
as it afTected individuals, we know to have come to him, as 
the autobiography again testifies, at the age of twelve, when, 
he says, he declared, or swore, "eternal war with slavery." 
But the oaths of a lad of such tender years do not often be- 
come the guiding force of maturity; in John Brown's case, 
not even his constant friendliness to fugitive slaves permits 
the assumption that early in his manhood he had definitely 
resolved upon the plan of overthrowing slavery by men and 
arms which he finally chose. Not until his thirty-fifth year 
is there direct documentary evidence that his mind was espe- 
cially concerning itself with the welfare of the black man in 
bondage, — that is, to any greater extent than were the minds 
and consciences of hundreds, if not thousands, of Ohio farmers 
who were later among the strongest enemies of human bond- 
age, and even then were dauntless station-masters and con- 
ductors on the rapidly expanding Underground Railroad. In 
November, 1834, when John Brown's stay in Pennsylvania 
was actually within six months of its close, when he was, 
however, apparently to remain in Richmond as a successful 
tanner and farmer, he first expressed on paper a wish to aid 
his fellow- Americans in chains. It Is In the following epistle 
to his brother Frederick, unstamped because It bears the 
frank of John Brown, then still postmaster at Randolph, of 
which Richmond was a part : ^ 

Randolph, Nov. 21, 1834. 
Dear Brother, — As I have had only one letter from Hudson 
since you left here, and that some weeks since, I begin to get uneasy 
and apprehensive that all is not well. I had satisfied my mind about 
it for some time, in expectation of seeing father here, but I begin to 
give that up for the present. Since you left here I have been trying 
to devise some means whereby I might do something in a practical 
way for my poor fellow-men who are in bondage, and having fully 
consulted the feelings of my wife and my three boys, we have agreed 
to get at least one negro boy or youth, and bring him up as we do 
our own, — viz., give him a good English education, learn him what 
we can about the history of the world, about business, about general 



44 JOHN BROWN 

subjects, and, above all, try to teach him the fear of God. We think 
of three ways to obtain one: First, to try to get some Christian 
slave-holder to release one to us. Second, to get a free one if no one 
will let us have one that is a slave. Third, if that does not succeed, 
we have all agreed to submit to considerable privation in order to 
buy one. This we are now using means in order to effect, in the con- 
fident expectation that God is about to bring them all out of the 
house of bondage. 

I will just mention that when this subject was first introduced, 
Jason had gone to bed; but no sooner did he hear the thing hinted, 
than his warm heart kindled, and he turned out to have a part in 
the discussion of a subject of such exceeding interest. I have for 
years been trying to devise some way to get a school a-going here 
for blacks, and I think that on many accounts it would be a most 
favorable location. Children here would have no intercourse with 
vicious people of their own kind, nor with openly vicious persons 
of any kind. There would be no powerful opposition influence 
against such a thing; and should there be any, I believe the settle- 
ment might be so effected in future as to have almost the whole in- 
fluence of the place in favor of such a school. Write me how you 
would like to join me, and try to get on from Hudson and there- 
abouts some firstrate abolitionist families with you. I do honestly 
believe that our united exertions alone might soon, with the good 
hand of our God upon us, effect it all. 

This has been with me a favorite theme of reflection for years. 
I think that a place which might be in some measure settled with 
a view to such an object would be much more favorable to such 
an undertaking than would any such place as Hudson, with all its 
conflicting interests and feelings; and I do think such advantages 
ought to be afforded the young blacks, whether they are all to be 
immediately set free or not. Perhaps we might, under God, in 
that way do more towards breaking their yoke effectually than 
in any other. If the young blacks of our country could once be- 
come enlightened, it would most assuredly operate on slavery like 
firing powder confined in rock, and all slaveholders know it well. 
Witness their heaven-daring laws against teaching blacks. If once 
the Christians in the free States would set to work in earnest in 
teaching the blacks, the people of the slaveholding States would 
find themselves constitutionally driven to set about the work of 
emancipation immediately. The laws of this State are now such 
that the inhabitants of any township may raise by a tax in aid of 
the State school-fund any amount of money they may choose by 
a vote, for the purpose of common schools, which any child may 
have access to by application. If you will join me in this under- 
taking, I will make with you any arrangement of our temporal 
concerns that shall be fair. Our health is good, and our prospects 
about business rather brightening. 

Affectionately yours, John Brown. 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 45 

It will be noticed, as has heretofore been pointed out, 2 that 
there is here a total absence of any belligerent intention 
on the writer's part; he who afterwards became disgusted 
with the Abolitionists because their propaganda involved talk 
alone, and no violent physical action against slavery, was 
planning, when nearly thirty-five, nothing more startling than 
a school for blacks, confident in the belief that their educa- 
tion in the North would shatter the whole system of slavery in 
the South, and turning for aid exclusively to friends in his 
former Ohio home. Again, he shows no knowledge of the pre- 
judice in the North against teaching blacks which had resulted 
in his native State in the suppression of schools for them in 
New Haven in 1831, and in Canterbury in 1834. Throughout 
his correspondence of these years, and later, there is little 
to indicate that Brown was in touch with much of what was 
going on in the nation. Indeed, as late as June 22, 1844, he 
wrote to his family, "I am extremely ignorant at present of 
miscellaneous subjects."^ It is the recollection of the family, 
however, that before this time they were called upon by their 
father to take a solemn oath to do all in their power to abolish 
slavery, after hearing from him of his purpose of attacking 
the institution. Jason Brown fixes the date of this event at 
1839, the place as Franklin, and those who were party to it 
as Mrs. Brown, a colored preacher, Fayette by name, and 
the three sons, John, Jr., Jason and Owen. He specifies merely 
that they were sworn "to do all in their power to abolish 
slavery," and does not use the word " force." John Brown, Jr., 
writing to F. B. Sanborn in December, 1890, thus expressed 
his opinion : ^ 

"It is, of course, impossible for me to say when such idea and 
plan first entered his [John Brown's] mind and became a purpose; 
but I can say with certainty that he first informed his family that 
he entertained such purpose while we were yet living in Franklin, 
O. (now called Kent), and before he went to Virginia, in 1840, to 
survey the lands which had been donated by Arthur Tappan to 
Oberlin College; and this was certainly as early as 1839. The place 
and the circumstances where he first informed us of that purpose 
are as perfectly in my memory as any other event in my life. Fa- 
ther, mother, Jason, Owen and I were, late in the evening, seated 
around the fire in the open fire-place of the kitchen, in the old 
Haymaker house where we then lived ; and there he first informed 



46 JOHN BROWN 

us of his determination to make war on slavery — not such war as 
Mr. Garrison* informs us 'was equally the purpose of the non- 
resistant abolitionists,' but war by force and arms. He said that 
he had long entertained such a purpose — that he believed it his 
duty to devote his life, if need be, to this object, which he made us 
fully to understand. After spending considerable time in setting 
forth in most impressive language the hopeless condition of the 
slave, he asked who of us were willing to make common cause with 
him in doing all in our power to 'break the jaws of the wicked and 
pluck the spoil out of his teeth,' naming each of us in succession, 
Are you, Mary, John, Jason, and Owen? Receiving an affirmative 
answer from each, he kneeled in prayer, and all did the same. This 
posture in prayer impressed me greatly as it was the first time I 
had ever known him to assume it. After prayer he asked us to raise 
our right hands, and he then administered to us an oath, the exact 
terms of which I cannot recall, but in substance it bound us to 
secrecy and devotion to the purpose of fighting slavery by force 
and arms to the extent of our ability. According to Jason's recol- 
lections, Mr. Fayette, a colored theological student at Western 
Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, was with us at the time but of this 
I am not certain." 

It must be noted here that in this letter John Brown, Jr., 
gives the date of the oath as 1839; in his lengthy afifidavit in 
the case of Gerrit Smith against the Chicago Tribune, he 
gave the date as 1836, three years earlier, and in an account 
given in Mr. Sanborn's book he placed it at 1837; three dis- 
tinct times for the same event. It can, therefore, best be 
stated as occurring before 1840.5 At this time, John Brown, 
Jr., was in his nineteenth year, Jason about sixteen years 
old, and Owen between fourteen and fifteen. The only tes- 
timony as to an early project akin to that of the final raid, 
available from any one else outside the family, is that of 
George B. Delamater,*' who says, "Having spent several days 
and nights with Old John Brown at various times between 
1840 and 1844, I enjoyed his society and was made acquainted 
with his views in regard to American slavery and its rela- 
tions at that time from various standpoints, and also with 
the scheme which he had under consideration for freeing 
persons held in bondage." Mr. Delamater at this period was 
a mere stripling; it is an interesting contrast to his recollec- 
tions that Mr. Foreman, in his long account of John Brown's 

* Wendell Phillips Garrison, in The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 47 

stay at Richmond from 1825 to 1835, makes no mention of 
having heard of any deliberate project; yet he was much 
older and more intimate with Brown than was Mr. Delamater, 
who, in this earlier Richmond period, was only a school-boy. 
That the subject was undoubtedly much in his mind prior 
to this appears again from an anecdote related by General 
Henry B. Carrington, and placed by him in the year 1836, 
although probably occurring in 1838, when there is the first 
definite record of John Brown's having been in Connecticut 
after his school days. General Carrington thus tells this inci- 
dent of his boyhood:^ 

"When I was a boy and went to school in Torrington, there came 
into the school room one day a tall man, rather slender, with gray- 
ish hair, who said to the boys: 'I want to ask you some questions 
in geography. Where is Africa?' 'It is on the other side of the 
ocean, of course,' said a boy. 'Why "of course," ' asked the man. 
The boy could n't say why 'of course.' Then the man proceeded to 
tell them something about Africa and the negroes, and the evil of 
the slave trade, and the wrongs and sufferings of the slaves, and 
then said, 'How many of you boys will agree to use your influence, 
whatever it may be, against this great curse, when you grow up?' 
They held up their hands. He then said that he was afraid that 
some of them might forget it, and added, 'Now I want those who 
are quite sure that they will not forget it, who will promise to use 
their time and influence toward resisting this evil, to rise.' Another 
boy and I stood up. Then this man put his hands on our heads 
and said, 'Now may my Father in Heaven, who is your Father, and 
who is the Father of the African; and Christ, who is my Master 
and_ Saviour, and your Master and Saviour, and the Master and 
Saviour of the African; and the Holy Spirit, which gives me strength 
and comfort, when I need it, and will give you strength and com- 
fort when you need it, and which gives strength and comfort to 
the African, enable you to keep this resolution which you have 
now taken.' And that man was John Brown." 

Most important after that of the Brown family is the tes- 
timony of Frederick Douglass, the colored leader, who states 
in his autobiography ^ that Brown confided the Virginia plan 
to him, without specifying Harper's Ferry or speaking of the 
arsenal, "about the time" he began his newspaper enterprise 
in Rochester in 1847, and among other details added that 
Brown explained his frugal manner of living by his wish to 
lay by money for this abolition project. Frederick Douglass 



48 JOHN BROWN 

visited Brown in his home in Springfield on this occasion. 
" From this night spent with John Brown," said Mr. Douglass, 
". . . while I continued to write and speak against slavery, 
I became all the same less hopeful of its peaceful abolition. 
My utterances became more and more tinged by the color 
of this man's strong impressions. Speaking at an anti-slavery 
convention in Salem, Ohio, I expressed the apprehension that 
slavery could only be destroyed by blood-shed, when I was 
suddenly and sharply interrupted by my good old friend 
Sojourner Truth with the question, 'Frederick, is God dead?' 
'No,' I answered, 'and because God is not dead, slavery can 
only end in blood.'" 

If this testimony seems to show that the plan of using force 
was then, in 1847, taking shape in Brown's mind, — it may 
have been delayed in coming to earlier maturity by his bank- 
ruptcy and financial distress, — there is nothing in John 
Brown's letters or diary to indicate so early an all-ruling 
plan of applying force to slavery as John Brown, Jr., records. 
It is said that his father first conceived the idea of using the 
Allegheny iMountains as the scene for an armed attack on 
slavery, and a means of running off freed slaves to the North, 
when he surv^e^^ed the Oberlin lands. ^ But his letter to his 
family from Ripley, Virginia, April 27, 1840,^° already cited, 
is peaceable enough, and his hope of settling his family there 
is hardly consistent with his anti-slavery policy of later years. 
Indeed, while recording his pleasure that the residents of the 
vicinity were more attractive people than he had thought, 
he had nothing to say about the institution of slavery which 
he then, for the first time, really beheld at close range. So 
far as the evidence of contemporary documents goes, until 
1840, at least, there is nothing to show that there was any- 
thing more than a family agreement to oppose slavery, with- 
out specification as to the precise method of assault. 

The transformation of the peaceful tanner and shepherd 
into a man burning to use arms upon an institution which 
refused to yield to peaceful agitation would seem to have 
taken place in the latter part of his fourth decade, as Mr. 
Douglass testified. Gradually his plan took final shape. There 
was nothing in the surroundings of pastoral Richfield or 
Akron to suggest narrow defiles and mountainous passes 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 49 

teeming with sharpshooters. But, little by Httle, visions of 
this kind came into Brown's brain more and more as the years 
passed, until in the early fifties his plan was clear to him in 
its outlines, much as actually put into execution. The salient 
idea was that mountains had throughout history been the 
means of enabling a few brave souls, whether gladiators, or 
slaves, or free men, Swiss, Italians, or Spaniards, or Circas- 
sians, to defy and sometimes to defeat armies of their op- 
pressors. Into the mountain fastnesses regular troops pene- 
trated, it was thought, with difficulty, and the ranges them- 
selves afforded an easy line of communication even through 
a wholly hostile country. Moreover, mountains were just 
the place to assemble bondmen and to give them arms with 
which to fight for liberty. For the project was now far dif- 
ferent from that John Brown described to his brother in 1834; 
slavery, it appeared, was, after all, not to be undone by edu- 
cating the negroes already freed, but by the sword of Gideon 
and a band as carefully chosen as was his. Gradually the 
practical shepherd felt his blood stirring within him, but not 
until after removal to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1846, 
when he had the opportunity to come into closer knowledge 
of the militant Boston Abolitionists, is there written evi- 
dence of this. He had seen the Liberator in his father's home, 
for Owen Brown early became a subscriber to this and other 
vigorous anti-slavery journals. John Brown's children also 
remember to have received the Liberator in Ohio, when it 
was still a youthful publication, ^^ and later in North Elba. 
The Tribune, too, as it attained fame under Greeley, was as 
welcome a visitor to this home as to so many thousands of 
others. Its approval of the doctrine of opposing slavery with 
Sharp's rifles commended it particularly in the Kansas days 
to John Brown, who was by nature unable to sympathize 
with the Garrisonian doctrine of non-resistance to force, 
although there are some who would believe Brown to have 
been a non-resistant as late as 1830. They cite in support 
of their contention a garbled anecdote, according to which 
he permitted himself to be cowhided without resisting his 
assailant's fury.^^ Brown's residence in Springfield gave him 
the opportunity not only to attend anti-slavery meetings, 
but also to meet many colored people; in the first written 



50 JOHN BROWN 

evidence of his growing aggressiveness towards slavery there 
is reference to enlightenment at the hands of Abby Kelley 
Foster,* Garrison "and other really benevolent persons." 
This curious production of Brown's bespeaks the influence 
upon him of Franklin's writings; throughout, it is an admo- 
nition to the negroes to avoid their besetting sins, an incen- 
tive to thrift, frugality and solidarity, and it is written as if 
from the pen of a black man. Sambo. Contributed in 1848 
or 1849 to a little-known Abolition newspaper. The Ram's 
Horn, published and edited by colored men in New York, 
this essay denounces the negroes for their supineness in the 
face of wrong, instead of their "nobly resisting" brutal ag- 
gressions. f 

But for all its denunciation of the negro's "tamely sub- 
mitting to every species of indignity, contempt and wrong," 
it cannot be maintained that this satirical article indicated 
that Brown had gone very far along the path toward an armed 
attack on slavery, although started in that direction. Nor 
does it appear from this that he had as yet reached the 
conclusion that the New England Abolitionists were to be 
shunned because they were all talk. In 1851, however, the 
policy of armed resistance becomes much more clearly de- 
veloped; the man of war is now emerging from the chrysalis 
of peace. On January 15 of that year there was organized in 
Springfield a branch of the United States League of Gilead- 
ites — the first and apparently the only one. It was Brown's 
idea; he chose the title, and it was his first effort to organize 
the colored people to defend themselves and advance their 
interests. It was a practical application of the teachings of 
Sambo, and was inspired by the passage of the Fugitive 
Slave Law, which made legal in the North the rendition of 
negroes who had found their way to free States. The "Words 
of Advice" for the Gileadites, "as written and recommended 
by John Brown" and adopted as the principles of the new 
organization, begin with the motto "Union is Strength," 

* "John Brown was strong for women's rights and women's suffrage. He 
always went to hear Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelley Foster, even though it cost 
him considerable effort to reach the place where they spoke." — Annie Brown 
Adams. 

t See Appendix. 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 51 

and declare in the first sentence that "Nothing so charms 
the American people as personal bravery." ^^ The object of 
the Gileadites was not, however, to attack slavery on its 
own territory, but to band the colored people together to re- 
sist slave- catchers and make impossible the returning to the 
South of a fugitive who had reached Northern soil. Brown 
wrote : 

"No jury can be found in the Northern States, that would con- 
vict a man for defending his rights to the last extremity. This is 
well understood by Southern Congressmen, who insisted that the 
right of trial by jury should not be granted to the fugitive. Col- 
ored people have more fast friends amongst the whites than they 
suppose. . . . Just think of the money expended by individuals 
in your behalf in the past twenty years! Think of the number 
who have been mobbed and imprisoned on your account. Have 
any of you seen the Branded Hand? Do you remember the names of 
Lovejoy and Torrey? Should one of your number be arrested, you 
must collect together as quickly as possible so as to outnumber your 
adversaries who are taking an active part against you. Let no 
able-bodied man appear on the ground unequipped, or with his 
weapons exposed to view; let that be understood beforehand. Your 
plans must be known only to yourself, and with the understanding 
that all traitors must die, wherever caught and proven to be guilty. 
'Whosoever is fearful or afraid, let him return and depart early 
from Mount Gilead.' (Judges, VII chap., 3 verse; Deut. XX Chap. 
8 verse.) Give all cowards an opportunity to show it on condi- 
tion of holding their peace. Do not delay one moment after you 
are ready; you will lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first 
blow be the signal for all to engage; and when engaged do not do 
your work by halves; but make clean work with your enemies, 
and be sure you meddle not with any others . . . Your enemies 
will be slow to attack you after you have once done up the work 
nicely. . . ." 

All this has the characteristic ring of John Brown the 
Kansas fighter, particularly the admonition to make "clean 
work with your enemies." Here is the stern Puritan parent, 
intolerant of childish fault, developed into a man urging not 
only shedding the blood of one's enemies, but the making of 
"clean work" of it, much as pirate captains advocated the 
walking of the plank as a sanitarily satisfactory way of dis- 
posing of one's captives. This advice, as will be seen later in 
this narrative, recurs frequently in the days when the Round- 
head was in the field at work. Certainly, when engaged, 



52 JOHN BROWN 

he always lived up to his doctrine of going at once to close 
quarters with his enemy, after the manner of John Paul Jones. 
The transformation of the practical shepherd was thus coming 
on apace. 

Characteristic, too, is Brown's suggestion in the "Words 
of Advice," that a lasso might be "applied to a slave-catcher 
for once with good effect." "Stand by one another, and by 
your friends, while a drop of blood remains; and be hanged, 
if you must, but tell no tales out of school," — this Is another 
solemn admonition which smacks of the Spanish Main, yet 
accurately foreshadows his own conduct when overcome by 
his enemies. Original is the hint to the colored people to 
embroil their white friends in the event of trouble: "After 
effecting a rescue, if you are assailed, go into the houses of 
your most prominent and influential white friends with your 
wives, and that will effectually fasten upon them the suspi- 
cion of being connected with you, and will compel them to 
make a common cause with you, whether they would other- 
wise live up to their profession or not. This would leave them 
no choice in the matter." These "Words of Advice" were 
followed by an agreement and nine resolutions which practi- 
cally restate the agreement. This was signed by forty-four 
colored men and women of Springfield. It is typical of other 
documents John Brown drew up on, to him, serious occa- 
sions, and is in his best style : ^^ 

AGREEMENT 

As citizens of the United States of America, trusting in a just 
and merciful God, whose spirit and all-powerful aid we humbly 
implore, we will ever be true to the flag of our beloved country, 
always acting under it. We, whose names are hereunto affixed, 
do constitute ourselves a branch of the United States League of 
Gileadites. We will provide ourselves at once with suitable imple- 
ments, and will aid those who do not possess the means, if any 
such are disposed to join us. We invite every colored person whose 
heart is engaged for the performance of our business, whether male 
or female, old or young. The duty of the aged, infirm, and young 
members of the League shall be to give instant notice to all mem- 
bers in case of an attack upon any of our people. We agree to 
have no officers except a Treasurer and Secretary pro tern., until 
after some trial of courage and talent of able-bodied members shall 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 53 

enable us to elect officers from those who shall have rendered the 
most important services. Nothing but wisdom and undaunted cour- 
age, efficiency, and general good conduct shall in anyway influence 
us in electing our officers. 

It is not of record that any members of the Gileadites 
actually took a hand in a slave-rescue "with suitable imple- 
ments." There is, on the other hand, no doubt that the de- 
termined Springfield wool-merchant, in drafting these reso- 
lutions in his fifty-first year, meant them to contain advice 
which may briefly be summed up as forcible resistance to the 
ofificers of the law, and an admonition to shoot to kill on all 
such occasions. As long as he was in Springfield, John Brown 
continued to concern himself with these colored friends. On 
November 28, 1850, just before he organized the Gileadites, 
he wrote to his wife: i^ "j of course keep encouraging my 
colored friends to 'trust in God and keep their powder dry.' 
I did so today, at Thanksgiving meeting, publicly." 

From the Gileadites to plans for guerrilla warfare was an 
easy step. In his second memorandum-book, preserved in the 
Boston Public Library, there is an entry which was probably 
recorded early in 1855. It reads thus: 

"Circassia has about 550,000 
Switzerland 2,037,030 
Guerilla warfare see Life of Lord Wellington Page 71 to Page 75 
(Mina). See also Page 102 some valuable hints in same Book. See 
also Page 196 some most important instructions to officers. See 
also same Book Page 235 these words Deep and narrow defiles 
where 300 men would suffice to check an army. See also Page 236 
on top of Page." 

The book in question is Joachim Hayward Stocqueler's 
two-volume 'Life of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington,' 
published in London in 1852, and the activity of the Spanish 
guerrillas under their able leader Mina was what attracted 
Brown's attention. The "most important instructions to 
officers" related to discipline and cooking, and page 235 fur- 
nished a description of the mountainous and broken topogra- 
phy of Spain. Directly opposite the entry quoted above is a 
list of Southern towns, with four Pennsylvania cities mixed in, 
as if Brown were considering such strategic points as Little 
Rock, Arkansas; Charleston, South Carolina; San Antonio, 



54 JOHN BROWN 

Texas; St. Louis, Missouri; Augusta, Georgia, and others, in 
an elaborate plan for assailing the slave-power and running 
off its much cherished property. Some Ohio friends of Brown, 
Colonel Daniel Woodruff, an officer of the War of 1812, his 
son-in-law, Mr. Henry Myers and his daughter, according to 
the recollections of the two latter (Colonel Woodruff having 
died soon after), learned from John Brown the details of his 
Virginia plan as early as the late fall of 1854 or the beginning 
of 1855. i'^ According to Mr. Myers, who heard the discussion 
between John Brown and his father-in-law, the former's ob- 
ject in visiting Colonel Woodruff was to persuade him to join 
in a raid on Harper's Ferry, to take place at that time, if 
it could be organized. He had seen active military service, 
and Brown wanted the aid of his practical experience. Dur- 
ing his stay, which he spent in urgent endeavor to persuade 
Colonel Woodruff, Brown detailed his whole scheme, so that 
all the Woodruff household came to understand it. He spoke 
of the evil days in Kansas, then existing, and he wished to 
relieve Kansas and to retaliate by striking at another point. 
He wanted to attack the arsenal at Harper's Ferry: first, to 
frighten Virginia and detach it from the slave interest; second, 
to capture the rifles to arm the slaves; and third, to destroy 
the arsenal machinery, so that it could not be used to turn 
out more arms for the perhaps long guerrilla war that might 
follow; and to destroy whatever guns were already stored 
there that he could not carry away. 

That this revelation of his plan is not improbable appears 
from other testimony. In August, 1854, John Brown wrote 
to his sons, who were then planning to combat slavery by 
settling in Kansas as Free State men, that he could not join 
them because he felt a call to duty in another section of the 
country. 1^ Evidently, the practical shepherd now clearly real- 
ized what was his greatest object in life and was devoting 
himself to it. His daughter, Annie Brown Adams, says that 
she first learned the plan of the raid the winter she was eleven 
years old (in 1854) ; and then she heard of it as to take place 
at Harper's Ferry. ^^ Later, in hearing other people's stories, 
she found other places mentioned. Salmon explained this to 
her by saying that their father several times changed his 
plans, and that he had spoken of them to various other people 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 55 

at these different times. "I think I may say," writes Mrs. 
Adams, "without any intention of boasting, that I knew 
more about his plans than anyone else, or at least anyone 
else who 'survived to tell the tale.' He always talked freely 
to me of his plans, from the time he first explained them to 
me, the winter before he went to Kansas, when I was eleven 
years old. He would say as if for a sort of apology to himself, 
perhaps, 'I know I can trust you. You never tell anything 
you are told not to,' after talking with me of his affairs." 

During all the North Elba period from 1849 to 1851, so 
Miss Sarah Brown thinks, she and all the children knew 
that a blow was to be struck at Harper's Ferry. She clearly 
remembers how, when Harper's Ferry came into the lesson 
at school, her heart hammered and she shivered as with cold. 
Yet she cannot recall that any of them were ever cautioned 
to keep silence as to this. She thinks they all understood 
the necessity of secrecy as to all their father's plans so well, 
that warnings were known to be superfluous. She clearly 
recalls standing behind her father's chair and watching him 
draw diagrams of log forts, explaining how the logs were to be 
laid, how the roofs were to be made, and how trees were to 
be felled without, and laid as obstacles to attacking parties. 
This was to be in the mountains near Harper's Ferry, and her 
father was making the pictures and explaining his plans to one 
Epps, a negro neighbor, who was looking on, and whom her 
father was endeavoring — vainly — to induce to join the raid- 
ers. Her father was so ready to trust others with his plans, with 
sublime faith in their ability to keep a secret, that his visit 
to Colonel Woodruff would have been entirely in keeping. It 
is related, too, that he confided in Thomas Thomas, a negro 
porter in the employ of Perkins & Brown in Springfield, 
soon after his arrival there in 1846, ^^ but there is no direct 
confirmatory evidence of his having laid his plan before some 
of the Gileadites. Thomas Thomas took no active interest in 
Brown's plans, being neither conspicuous in the League, nor 
a member of his employer's Chatham convention in 1858, 
preceding the raid on Harper's Ferry. 

As to the purposes behind the plan and the objects to be 
obtained, it is probable that they may have varied as the 
years passed, precisely as did the details of the programme 



56 JOHN BROWN 

and the actual place of starting his revolt. Thus, while he 
first thought of Harper's Ferry, as Mrs. Annie Brown Adams 
testifies, 20 other places were at times discussed; even up to the 
raid, it was thought by some of the Boston backers of Brown 
that the place of striking the first blow would be some other 
locality than Harper's Ferry, -^ which, by its nearness to the 
capital of the nation and its being on a railroad, was ren- 
dered much less desirable for the purpose in hand than some 
place nearer the Ohio boundary. So, too, the prime object 
was at one time the terrorizing of the slaveholders and the 
making of slaveholding less profitable, by reducing the value 
of slaves along the border. Not until later was there thought 
out a plan for capturing, controlling and governing a whole 
section of the United States. Again, in the Kansas years, a 
prime motive was to relieve the pro-slavery pressure upon 
Kansas by attacking slavery elsewhere. At one time, as his 
son Salmon points out, John Brown hoped to force a settle- 
ment of the slavery question by embroiling both sections. 
This was in line with his whole Kansas policy of inducing a 
settlement by bringing armed pro-slavery and Free State forces 
to close quarters, and letting them fight it out. After the 
Kansas episode, John Brown planned agitation for the pur- 
pose of setting the South afire. The Southern leaders in Con- 
gress having continually threatened secession, John Brown 
hoped to help them carry out their threat or force them into 
it, saying that the "North would then whip the South back 
into the Union without slavery." Salmon Brown declares 
that he heard his father and John Brown, Jr., discuss this by 
the hour, and insists that "the Harper's Ferry raid had that 
idea behind it far more than any other," the biographers of 
his father having failed heretofore to bring out this central 
far-reaching idea to the extent it merits. 22 But the main 
motive was, after all, to come to close quarters with slavery, 
and to try force where argument and peaceful agitation had 
theretofore failed to break the slaves' chains. And so, shortly 
before he reached the age of fifty, this unknown and incon- 
spicuous wool-merchant and cattle-raiser had fully resolved 
to be the David to the Goliath of slavery. He entertained 
no doubt that he could accomplish that end, if he could but 
command the funds necessary for the purchase of arms. 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 57 

While all this metamorphosis of the man was going on, 
John Brown's new business venture had really brought him 
into smoother waters, even though it was not destined to be 
lasting or a financial success. After tending the Perkins flocks 
for two years, it was decided to establish a headquarters in 
Massachusetts for the sale of the wool, and there followed 
the residence in Springfield which meant so much for Brown's 
development. It was in 1846 that he opened the office, and 
the next year his family joined him there. Frederick Douglass, 
after seeing the fine store of Perkins & Brown, was prepared 
to find Brown's residence in Springfield similarly impressive. 
"In fact," he wrote, ^^ "the house was neither commodious 
nor elegant, nor its situation desirable. It was a small wooden 
building, on a back street, in a neighborhood chiefly occupied 
by laboring men and mechanics; respectable enough to be 
sure, but not quite the place, I thought, where one would look 
for the residence of a flourishing and successful merchant. 
Plain as was the outside of this man's house, the inside was 
plainer. Its furniture would have satisfied a Spartan. . . . 
There was an air of plainness about it [the house] which almost 
suggested destitution." The meal was "such as a man might 
relish after following the plow all day, or performing a forced 
march of a dozen miles over a rough road in frosty weather." 
Everything in the home implied to Mr. Douglass "stern 
truth, solid purpose, and rigid economy." "I was not long," 
he added, "in company with the master of this house before 
I discovered that he was, indeed, the master of it, and was 
likely to become mine too if I stayed long enough with him. 
He fulfilled St. Paul's idea of the head of the family. His wife 
believed in him, and his children observed him with reverence. 
Whenever he spoke his words commanded earnest attention. 
. . . Certainly I never felt myself in the presence of a stronger 
religious influence than while in this man's house." 

As for John Brown the man, he was then in his forty-eighth 
year, without the stoop that a few years later made him seem 
prematurely old. His attire, however simple, was always neat 
and of good materials; in Ohio, the testimony is, he dressed 
like a substantial farmer in the woolen suits of the time and 
wore cowhide boots. Physically strong and sinewy, he was 
not five feet eleven in height, with a disproportionately small 



58 JOHN BROWN 

head, an inflexible and stern mouth and a prominent chin. 
His hair, already tinged with gray, was closely trimmed and 
grew well over his forehead. But his bluish gray eyes were 
what held and won people; they fairly shone when he talked. 
Mr. Douglass remembers that they were "full of light and 
fire." 2^ His nose was somewhat prominent and of what is 
known as the Roman type. With all, the face was vigorous, 
shrewd and impressive. Once a visitor to the North Elba 
homestead remarked to a family group: "I think your father 
looks like an eagle." " Yes," replied Watson Brown, "or some 
other carnivorous bird." ^^ But the comparison was not meant 
to be unflattering; it was the keenness of the eagle's looks, 
the sharp watchfulness of his glance, even with half-shut eyes, 
that suggested the comparison. On the prairies, those who 
rode with John Brown were struck with the range and the 
alertness of his vision, from which nothing escaped, while 
those who saw him in the cities noticed the long springing 
step and apparent deep absorption in his own reflections. 
Yet all agreed upon the impressiveness of John Brown's bear- 
ing; even in later years, when his appearance was so rural as 
to attract attention on the streets of Boston, the earnestness 
of his face and the vigor of his form prevented any disposition 
to ridicule. 

The object of the establishment of Perkins & Brown's 
ofifice in Springfield was to classify wools for wool-growers, in 
order that they might thus obtain a better value for their 
product than had been the case up to that time, and to 
sell it on a commission of two cents per pound. ^^ Having 
warehouses, Perkins & Brown received large shipments of 
wool from farmers known to them, and then by carefully 
sorting the fleeces were able to approach manufacturers of 
cashmere, broadcloth, jeans or satinette, with the wools of the 
grade they desired. In the first Springfield letter-book of 
the firm, into which were laboriously copied in long-hand all 
its letters," the first epistle bears the date of June 23, 1846, 
and is a tribute to John Brown's probity in that it notifies 
Mr. Marvin Kent that, if he should send wool to the firm to 
sell, the amount of the commissions earned would be used to 
liquidate John Brown's old debts to himself and his father. 
The times were not, however, propitious for the new enter- 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 59 

prise. The Walker tariff was just being passed by Congress, and 
the war with Mexico was on. The legislative uncertainty made 
the wool market dull and unstable, and when the Walker bill 
was signed, the price of Saxony wool, in which Perkins & 
Brown were especially interested, dropped from seventy- five to 
twenty-five cents. Perkins & Brown were, however, able to 
start off by selling the splendid wool of their own flocks for the 
good price of sixty-nine cents, and early in July, in a letter in 
Brown's handwriting, they asserted that "we receive at this 
place more of the first class of American wools than any other 
house in the country." ^^ Many of the firm's letters are in 
the handwriting of John Brown, Jr., who, having finished 
an excellent schooling and being ready for business life, be- 
came a clerk in the Springfield office, in which Jason Brown 
also served. By August 26, John Brown was able to report, 
cheerfully, to the senior partner in Ohio, as follows i^^ "We 
are getting in wool rapidly, generally from 50 to 80 bales per 
day. We are selling a little and have very frequent calls from 
manufacturers. Musgrave paid up our note at the Agawam 
[bank] yesterday so that I now have our name clear of any 
paper in this country. . . . We have had a big wool-growers 
meeting at Springfield; Bishop Campbell presiding, in refer- 
ence to sending wool hereafter to Europe." 

This project of exporting wool to England and the Conti- 
nent deeply interested Brown from the beginning of his 
Springfield residence, particularly as he found himself, in the 
fall of 1846, loaded up with other people's wool, unable to sell 
it for them at fair figures, and quite unwilling to sacrifice it 
at forced sales. On November 27, 1846, he wrote to a client^*' 
that he would have gone across the Atlantic with a quan- 
tity of wool save for unforeseen hindrances. He had sent to 
England in 1845, from Ohio, some fleeces "which received 
unqualified praise both for condition and quality," and, as he 
said in this letter, the firm was bent on encouraging exporta- 
tion "and in giving character to American wools in Europe." 
Indeed, the sale of their higher grades of wool to an English- 
man for export on December 21, 1846, was all that saved 
Perkins & Brown from a disastrous ending to their first 
season's business. They were being hard pushed by those who 
had sent the wool and were in need of money, and who could 



6o JOHN BROWN 

not understand why the firm had not been able to sell a single 
pound of fine wool from July to December. Moreover, some 
customers had just grievances, for the letter-book contains far 
too many apologies for failure to acknowledge letters and 
shipments and to make out accurate accounts, for so young 
a firm. To one of the protestants, John Brown explained the 
situation thus: ^^ 

" We have at last found out that some of the principal manu- 
facturers are leagued together to break us down, as we have offered 
them wool at their own price & they refuse to buy. . . . We hope 
every wool-grower in the country will be at Steubenville [Ohio] 
2d Wednesday of Feb'y next, to hear statements about the wool 
trade of a most interesting character. There is no difhculty in the 
matter as we shall be abundantly able to show, if the farmers will 
only be true to themselves. . . . Matters of more importance to 
farmers will then be laid open, than what kind of TarrifT we are to 
have. No sacrifise kneed be made, the only thing wanted is to get 
the broad shouldered, & hard handed farmers to understand how 
they have been imposed upon, & the whole matter will be cured 
effectually." 

At this convention Brown made his peace with the Ohio 
wool-growers who had shipped to him, but he did not find a 
means of checkmating the cloth manufacturers. He read to 
the convention a report on the best mode of making wools 
ready for market and kindred subjects. It was resolved that 
better care should be taken in preparing and washing the 
wools, that commission-house depots be appointed. East and 
West, for the sale of wools, Perkins & Brown to be the East- 
ern house, and a committee of five, of which John Brown was 
one, was appointed to obtain a foreign market for American 
wools. ^2 The wicked manufacturers continued, however, to 
make trouble for the wool-growers and the commission house 
of Perkins & Brown, whose eventual retirement from the 
wool business is still laid at their doors. They did not wish 
the wool-growers to organize and unite; but in all fairness to 
the manufacturers, the final failure should as well be shared 
by Perkins & Brown themselves. ^^ For, though the Spring- 
field business continued in 1848 and 1849, as time passed it 
was evident that John Brown, wholly lacking as he was in a 
merchant's training, was not fitted for the work. He did not 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 6i 

know how to trade, being far too rigid in his prices. He waited 
to make them until he had all his wool sorted; then, when 
the prices were finally fixed, the manufacturers had bought 
elsewhere. It is related ^^ that John Brown once declined 
sixty cents a pound for the firm's own splendid Saxony fleeces 
and insisted on shipping them to England for sale. The North- 
ampton, Massachusetts, manufacturer who made the ofi'er 
bought this shipment in England, had it returned to Spring- 
field, and showed it in triumph to John Brown as having cost 
him in freight and all only fifty-two cents a pound, eight cents 
less than he had first offered for it. Brown had apparently 
put no restriction of price upon his London agent. 

The idea of checkmating the manufacturers by sales abroad 
continued to engross Brown, and he was finally able to carry 
out his idea of a trip to Europe in 1849. He sailed August 15, 
1849, by the steamer Cambria, arriving in London on the 27th, 
on a journey which afterwards played a great part in his dis- 
cussions of his military plans, for, aside from his business ven- 
ture, he was by this time particularly anxious to study some 
European fortifications. Finding on his arrival in London that 
no sales could be effected until the middle of September, he 
left for Paris on the 29th of August. Some of his first impres- 
sions of England are thus set down in a letter to his son : ^^ 

"England is a fine country, so far as I have seen; but nothing 
so very wonderful has yet appeared to me. Their farming and 
stone-masonry are very good; cattle, generally more than middling 
good. Horses, as seen at Liverpool and London, and through the 
fine country betwixt these places, will bear no comparison with 
those of our Northern states, as they average. I am here told that 
I must go to the Park to see the fine horses of England, and I sup- 
pose I must; for the streets of London and Liverpool do not ex- 
hibit half the display of fine horses as do those of our cities. But 
what I judge from more than anything is the numerous breeding 
mares and colts among the growers. Their hogs are generally good, 
and mutton-sheep are almost everywhere as fat as pork." 

Of the people and their institutions John Brown recorded 
no impressions in the letters of this period now extant. Nor 
is his entire Continental itinerary known. According to care- 
fully saved hotel bills, 36 he was in Calais on August 29 and 30, 
and in Hamburg on September 5. Between these two dates 



62 JOHN BROWN 

he was in Paris, going thence to Brussels, where he visited 
the battlefield of Waterloo on his way eastward. Various 
surmises have been made as to where the other eleven or 
twelve days between his visit to Hamburg and his return to 
London were spent, but there is no documentary evidence 
to prove the number of battlefields he visited, or that he 
actually penetrated in so brief a time into Switzerland and 
Northern Italy, as is sometimes alleged. As already stated, 
this short trip to the Continent played a great part in his later 
conversations, when he was called upon to defend the peculiar 
features, from the military point of view, of his Harper's Ferry 
plans. But obviously, no thorough military studies were pos- 
sible in so scant a time as John Brown had in Europe. 

He was in London again not later than September 17, when 
an auction sale of some of his wool took place that set the seal 
of disaster upon his business venture. The story was thus 
related to his son by the traveller:" 

London [Friday] 21st Sept 1849 
Dear Son John 

I have nothing new to write excepting that I [am] still well & 
that on Monday last a lot of No. 2 wool was sold at the auction sale 
at f f to 1 ^^ or in other words at from .26 to .29 cents pr lb. This 
is a bad sale, & I have withdrawn all other wools from the public 
sales. Since the other wools have been withdrawn I have discov- 
ered a much greater interest amongst the buyers, & I am in hopes 
to succeed better with the other wools but cannot say yet how it 
will prove on the whole. I have a great deal of stupid, obstinate, 
prejudice, to contend with as well as conflicting interests; both in 
this country, & from the United States. I can only say that I have 
exerted myself to the utmost; & that if I cannot effect a better sale 
of the other wools privately; I shall start them back. I believe that 
not a pound of the No 2 wool was bought for the United States, 
& I learn that the general feeling is now; that it was quite under- 
sold. About 150 Bales were sold. I regret that so many were put 
up; but it cannot be helped now, for after wool has been subjected 
to a London examination for a public sale it is very much injured 
for selling again. The agent of Thirion IVIaillard & Co has been 
looking at them today, & seemed highly pleased, said he had never 
seen superior wools; & that he would see me again. We have not 
yet talked about price. I now think I shall begin to think of home 
quite in earnest at least in another fortnight possibly sooner. I do 
not think the sale made a full test of the opperation. 

Farewell Your Affectionate Father 

John Brown 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 63 

On October 5, Brown had again returned to London, after 
visiting "Leeds, Wortley, Branley, Bradford & other places," 
and wrote thus to his son John, Jr. : ^s '' I expect to close up the 
sale of wool here today, & to be on my way home One week 
from today. . . . It is impossible to sell the wool for near its 
value compared with other wools, but I expect to do better 
some than in the first sale. I have at any rate done my utmost, 
& can do no more. I do not expect to write again before I 
leave. . . . My health is good but I have been in the midst 
of sickness and death." During this interval, too, John Brown 
visited in London the first of the long series of world's fairs, 
and took advantage of it to exhibit some of the beautiful 
Saxony wool he had brought with him. Long after his return 
to his home, he received a bronze medal which the wool judges 
awarded him for his exhibit. Here, too, must be recorded the 
story early recorded by Redpath, of the attempt of some 
English wool-merchants to play a trick on the rustic Yankee 
farmer who came to them with wool to sell, by handing him 
a sample and asking him what he would do with it: "His eyes 
and fingers were so good that he had only to touch it to know 
that it had not the minute hooks by which fibres of wool are 
attached to each other. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'if you have 
any machinery that will work up dogs' hair, I would advise 
you to put this into it.' The jocose Briton had sheared a 
poodle and brought the hair in his pocket, but the laugh 
went against him; and Captain Brown, in spite of some pecul- 
iarities of dress and manner, soon won the respect of all he 
met." It is also said that if given samples of Ohio and Ver- 
mont wool, he could readily distinguish them when blind- 
folded or in the dark. 

Apparently he was able to despatch his business about as 
he had hoped to, for he was in New York by the end of Octo- 
ber, bringing baek the wool that he was unable to sell. The 
loss on this venture was probably as high as forty thousand 
dollars. ^^ Not unnaturally this added neither to the standing 
nor the progress of the firm, and the skies were much dark- 
ened for the partners. Even before the trip to Europe, they 
had talked of giving up the business. Nearly a year later, 
John Brown thus described an interview with his financial 
backer and partner : *^ 



64 JOHN BROWN 

BuRGETTSTOWN Pa I2th April 1850 

Dear Son John, & Wife 

When at New York on my way here I called at Mess Fowlers 
& Wells office, but you were absent. Mr. Perkins has made me a 
visit here, & left for home yesterday. All well in Essex when I left. 
All well at Akron when he left one week since. Our meeting to- 
gether was one of the most cordial, & pleasant, I ever experienced. 
He met a full history of our difficulties, & probable losses without 
a frown on his countenance, or one sylable of reflection, but on the 
contrary with words of comfort, & encouragement. He is wholly 
averse to any seperation of our business or interests, & gave me 
the fullest assurance of his undiminished confidence, & personal 
regard. He expressed a strong desire to have our flock of sheep 
remain undivided to become the joint possession of our families 
when we have gone off the stage. Such a meeting I had not dared 
to expect, & I most heartily wish each of my family could have 
shared in the comfort of it. Mr. Perkins has in this whole business 
from first to last set an example worthy of a Philosopher, or of a 
Christian. I am meeting with a good deal of trouble from those 
to whom we have over advanced but feel nerved to face any diffi- 
culty while God continues me such a partner. Expect to be in New 
York within 3 or 4 weeks.* 

By November the firm's situation was much worse. "We 
have trouble," wrote John Brown to his son on the 4th of 
that month, ^^ "with Pickersgills, McDonald, Jones, Warren, 
Burlington & Patterson & Ewing. These different claims 
amount to $40 M ; [$40,000] & if lost will leave me nice & flat. 
(This is in confidence.) Mr. Perkins bears the trouble a great 
deal better than I had feared. I have been trying to collect 
& am still trying," Just a month later, he informed his sons 
that the prospect for the fine-wool business was improving. 
"What burdens me most of all is the apprehension that Mr. 
Perkins expects of me in the way of bringing matters to a 
close what no living man can possibly bring about in a short 
time, and that he is getting out of patience and becoming 
distrustful. . . . He is a most noble-spirited man, to whom 
I feel most deeply indebted ; and no amount of money would 
atone to my feelings for the loss of confidence and cordiality 
on his part." That this loss did not come to pass is attested 
by a letter from Mr. Perkins's son, George T. Perkins, who 
writes: t "My father, Simon Perkins, was associated with Mr. 

* Signature missing. 

t To the author, from Akron, Ohio, December 26, 1908. 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 65 

Brown in business for a number of years, and always regarded 
him as thoroughly honest and honorable in all his relations 
with him. Mr. Brown was, however, so thoroughly imprac- 
tical in his business management, as he was in almost every- 
thing else, that the business was not a success and was dis- 
continued. Their relations were afterwards friendly." On 
the other side, the Browns felt that too much responsibility 
had been put upon their father. While most successful as a 
railroad man, Mr. Perkins was not as wx-ll fitted by experience 
and aptitude for the wool business. But despite John Brown's 
failures, he gave him one chance after another. "John Brown 
was, however, entirely obstinate, insisted always on having 
his own way, and at last Mr. Perkins broke the connection." "^ 
The senior partner did not, moreover, share the junior's antip- 
athy to slavery. 

The final winding up of the firm's affairs lasted for some 
years, because of prolonged litigation growing out of the 
trouble with some of the houses and customers John Brown 
mentioned. Against one of them, Warren, his indignation 
was never checked. As late as April 16, 1858, he warned his 
family, when purchasing land from his daughter and son-in- 
law, against the possibility of trouble from creditors of Per- 
kins & Brown: " 

" Since I wrote you, I have thought it possible; though not prob- 
able; that some persons might be disposed to hunt for any property 
I rnay be supposed to possess, on account of liabilities I incurred 
while concerned with Mr. Perkins. Such claims I ought not to pay 
if I had ever so much given me; for my service in Kansas. Most of 
you know that I gave up all I then had to Mr. Perkins while with 
him. ... I also think that . . . all the family had better decline 
saying anything about their land matters. Should any disturbance 
ever be made it will most likely come directly or indirectly through 
a scoundrel by the name of Warren who defrauded Mr. Perkins 
and I out of several thousand dollars." 

The trial of the Perkins & Brown suit against Warren took 
place in Troy, New York, late in January, 1852; from a re- 
port of John Brown to Mr. Perkins on the 26th of January, ^-^ 
it looked as if the suit were going in the firm's favor. He did 
obtain a verdict in this lower court, only to have it appealed 
to a higher court, with the result, according to John Brown, 



66 JOHN BROWN 

that Warren was successful in his attempt to defraud the 
firm. A more serious suit was one brought against Perkins 
& Brown for no less than sixty thousand dollars damages, 
for breach of contract in supplying wool of certain grades 
to the Burlington Mills Company of Burlington, Vermont. It 
finally came to trial January 14, 1853, and after progressing 
somewhat it was settled out of court, his counsel deeming 
it wiser to compromise than to face a jury.^^ There were still 
other suits brought by or against the firm to vex John Brown 
during these years 1850 to 1854, and to add by their costh- 
ness and tedious delays to the financial losses. This was the 
unfortunate wind-up to John Brown's career as a wool-mer- 
chant. Thereafter he lived first on the products of his farm- 
ing in Ohio or in the Adirondacks, and then on gifts made to 
maintain him as a guerrilla leader in Kansas, or as a prospective 
invader of Virginia. From August, 1856, when he first re- 
turned from Kansas, until October, 1859, he was thus main- 
tained, without a regular business or regular labor of any 
kind, while part of his family obtained a penurious living 
in the Adirondacks, and the grown sons shared their father's 
poverty and hardships in Kansas or worked and farmed at 
intervals in Ohio, until the final disaster at Harper's Ferry. 
Although unable to impress others with his fitness as a busi- 
ness man, when he finally abandoned the career of a mer- 
chant for that of a warrior against slavery, he had so little 
difificulty in convincing friends and acquaintances of his abil- 
ity, usefulness and sagacity as a guerrilla chief and leader of 
a slave revolt, that he readily obtained thousands of dollars to 
maintain him and his followers during at least three years of 
their warring upon the South's cherished ownership of human 
property. 

It is only just to add that, while the financial losses of 
Perkins & Brown's mercantile business were heavy, Mr. Per- 
kins was not only willing to continue in the farming and 
sheep-raising part of it with Brown, but insisted on it until 
well into the spring of 1854. The last year of this phase of 
their joint enterprise was "quite successful." "We have 
great reason to be thankful," wrote John Brown in February, 
" that we have had so prosperous a year, and have terminated 
our connection with Mr. Perkins so comfortably and on such 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 67 

friendly terms." ^^ Early in April, 1854, he again wrote: "I 
had a most comfortable time settling last year's business and 
dividing with Mr. Perkins and have to say of his dealings 
with me that he has shown himself to be every inch a gen- 
tleman." ^^ The only drawback, in John Brown's mind, was 
his inability to move his family back to North Elba. This he 
had to put off for another year, during which he rented and 
worked three farms near Akron, meanwhile turning every- 
thing into cash that he could in preparation for the final 
settlement in his new home in the Adirondacks. 

For John Brown was content to stay neither in Akron nor 
anywhere else in Ohio. The residence of his family in Spring- 
field had lasted, all told, but two years, from 1847 to 1849; 
then the restlessness of his nature dictated another move. 
While in Springfield he occupied the house at number 31 
Franklin Street, where Frederick Douglass found him, and in 
which his daughter Ellen was born on May 20, 1848, only to 
die a year later in her sorely tried father's arms. Still another 
child, an infant son, he was yet to lose, — the seventh of the 
thirteen children of his second marriage to die in childhood, 
while two more were destined to perish at Harper's Ferry 
before his eyes. It is still remembered that the parlor of this 
Springfield house was not furnished, that the money it would 
cost might be given to fugitive slaves. ^^ Indeed, Springfield 
still abounds in anecdotes of the wool-dealer in whom, at the 
time of his residence there, no one saw any signs of greatness. 
The best known one concerns his attempt to prove that the 
hypnotism practised by La Roy Sunderland, a well-known 
hypnotist of this period, 1848 or 1849, was a fraud. So many 
garbled versions of this story have appeared from time to 
time that it is best to give it in Mr. Sunderland's own words, 
as he described it on December 9, 1859: ^^ 

"His conduct in one of my lectures on Pathetism, in Springfield, 
Mass., some twelve years since, has been referred to in the papers, 
lately. That occasion offered a grand opportunity for the exhibi- 
tion of his real character, as, at that time, he had not engaged in 
the defence of Kansas, and he had had no personal encounters 
with Slavery. He had witnessed the surgical operation performed 
on a lady whom I had rendered insensible to pain, as she alleged, 
by Pathetism. This, with the other phenomena which he witnessed 
in my lectures, was beyond his comprehension; and so he arose one 



68 JOHN BROWN 

evening, and pronounced my lectures a humbug, and he offered to 
prove it, if I would only allow him to come upon my platform, 
and test the consciousness of one of my patients. To this proposal 
I consented, on two conditions, namely, that his tests should not 
endanger the health of my patient; and this to be determined by 
the physicians of the town; and secondly, that Brown himself 
should submit to the same processes which he should inflict upon 
the entranced lady. To this he readily agreed, although it was 
quite evident that when he at first proposed his test he had no idea 
of going through with it himself. He had consulted a physician for a 
process which should, beyond all doubt, demonstrate the conscious- 
ness of pain, if any such consciousness existed in the lady who was 
entranced. And so the next night. Brown and his physicians were 
on hand, with a vial of concentrated ammonia and a quantity (q. s.) 
oi dolichos pruriens (cowhage). This 'cow itch,' as it is sometimes 
called, is the sharp hair of-a plant, and when applied to the skin, it acts 
mechanically for a long time, tormenting the sufferer like so many 
thistles or needles being constantly thrust into the nerves. No one, 
I am sure, would willingly consent to suffer the application of cow- 
hage to his body more than once. Brown bore it like a hero. But, 
then, he had the advantage of the entranced lady — the skin of his 
neck looking like sole leather; it was tanned by the sun, and looked 
as if it was impervious. Not so, however, when the ammonia was 
held to his nose; for then, by a sudden jer^ of his head, it became 
manifest that he could not, by his own volition, screw up his nervous 
system to endure what I had rendered a timid lady able to bear 
without any manifestation of pain. The infliction upon Brown was 
a terrible one, for he confessed, three days afterwards, that he had 
not been able to sleep at all since the cowhage was rubbed into his 
neck. In submitting himself to that test, the audience declared him 
'foolhardy,' as it proved nothing against the genuineness of my 
experiments. It would not follow, that because he could endure 
an extraordinary amount of physical pain, therefore another per- 
son could do the same. The degree of courage manifested by 
John Brown made him the extraordinary man he was. . . ." 

The church Brown attended while in Springfield was natu- 
rally the Zion Methodist, for it was formed by dissenters from 
an older church because of their anti-slavery views, John 
Brown found also a congenial friend in a Mr. Conkling, a 
clergyman, who later became estranged from his congregation 
by reason of his Abolition opinions.^'' While John Brown 
himself never faltered in his religious faith, the backsliding 
of his sons disturbed him not a little, so that he wrote to them 
a number of pathetically earnest letters, endeavoring to recall 
them to the w^ays of godliness. It was characteristic of him 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 69 

that, strong as was his nature and intense as was his belief 
in the orthodox Congregational faith, this difference of reli- 
gious conviction never interfered with the affection which 
existed between father and sons. To some of his children he 
addressed the following letter on this subject while in Troy, 
New York: 51 

Troy, N. Y., 23 Jan. 1852 
Dear Children: 

I returned here on the evening of the 12th inst. and left Akron 
on the 14th, the date of your letter to John. I was very glad to 
hear from you again in that way, not having received anything from 
you while at home. I left all in usual health and as comfortable as 
could be expected; but am afflicted with you on account of your 
little Boy. Hope to hear by return mail that you are all well. As 
in this trouble you are only tasteing of a cup I have had to drink of 
deeply, and very often ; I need not tell how fully I can sympathize 
with you in your anxiety. My attachments to this world have been 
very strong, and Divine Providence has been cutting me loose one 
bond after another, up to the present time, but notwithstanding 
I have so much to remind me that all ties must soon be severed ; I 
am still clinging like those who have hardly taken a single lesson. I 
really hope some of my family may understand that this world is 
not the home of man; and act in accordance. Why may I not hope 
this of you? When I look forward as regards the religious prospects 
of my numerous family (the most of them) I am forced to say, and 
to feel too; that I have little, very little to cheer. That this should 
be so, is I perfectly well understand, the legitimate fruit of my own 
planting; and that only increases my punishment. Some ten or 
twelve years ago I was cheered with the belief that my elder chil- 
dren had chosen the Lord to be their God; and I valued much on 
their influence and example in attoning for my deficiency and bad 
example with the younger children. But, where are we now? Sev- 
eral have gone_ to where neither a good or a bad example from me 
will better their condition or prospects, or make them the worse. 
The younger part of my children seem to be far less thoughtful and 
disposed to reflection than were my older children at their age. I 
will not dwell longer on this distressing subject but only say that 
so far as I have gone; it is from no disposition to reflect on anyone 
but myself. I think I can clearly discover where I wandered from 
the Road. How to now get on it with my family is beyond my abil- 
ity to see; or my courage to hope. God grant you thorough conver- 
sion from sin, and full purpose of heart to continue steadfast in his 
ways through the very short season of trial you will have to pass. 

How long we shall continue here is beyond our ability to foresee, 
but think it very probable that if you write us by return mail we 
shall get your letter. Something may possibly happen that may 



70 JOHN BROWN 

enable us, or one of us, to go and see you but do not look for us. I 
should feel it a great privilege if I could. We seem to be getting 
along well with our business, so far ; but progress miserably slow. 
My journeys back and forth this winter have been very tedious. 
If you find it difficult for you to pay for Douglas paper, I wish you 
would let me know as I know I took some liberty in ordering it con- 
tinued. You have been very kind in helping me and I do not mean 
to make myself a burden. 

Your Affectionate Father 

John Brown. 

On the 6th of August of the same year he again took up the 
religious question with his son John in this fashion : " 

Akron, Ohio 6th Aug 1852 
Dear Son John 

One word in regard to the religious belief of yourself, & the ideas 
of several of my children. My affections are too deep rooted to be 
alienated from them, but 'my Grey Hairs must go down to the grave 
in sorrow,' unless the 'true God' forgive their denyal, & rejection 
of him, & open their Eyes. I am perfectly conscious that their ' Eyes 
are blinded' to the real Truth, & minds prejudiced by Hearts un- 
reconciled to their maker & judge; & that they have no right appre- 
ciation of his true character, nor of their Own. 'A deceived Heart 
hath turned them aside.' That God in infinite mercy for Christs 
sake may grant to you & Wealthy, & to my other Children 'Eyes 
to see ' is the most earnest and constant prayer of your Affectionate 
Father 

John Brown. 

Just a year later, John Brown returned to the charge and 
spent a month writing a letter of pamphlet length, mostly 
composed of Scriptural quotations strung together.^^ "I do 
not feel ' estranged from my children,' " he wrote, "but I cannot 
flatter them, nor cry peace when there is no peace." He was 
particularly pained because, as he said of his younger sons: 
"After thorough and candid investigation they have discovered 
the Bible to be all a fiction ! Shall I add that a letter received 
from you sometime since gave me little else than pain and 
sorrow? 'The righteous shall h,old on his way:' 'By and by 
he Is ofif ended.'" 

It was his all-impelling desire to help the colored people 
that led him early to plan for the removal of his family to the 
Adirondacks. Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, had offered to give, 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 71 

on August I, 1846, no less than one hundred and twenty 
thousand acres of land of his vast patrimony in northern 
New York to worthy colored people, whom he aided in many 
other ways as well.^^ By April 8, 1848, John Brown had fully 
decided to settle his family in the midst of the negro colonists, 
in order to aid them by example and precept. He later visited 
his brother-in-law, Orson Day, who was then living in White- 
hall, New York, and from Mr. Day's home went on into the 
Adirondack wilderness as far as the little negro settlement 
of North Elba, where he became convinced that this was the 
place for him to settle. He was at once charmed with the 
superb scenery which has made this region of late such a 
highly prized summer resort. The great mountains appealed 
irresistibly to him, and the negro colony offered an opportu- 
nity for training men in the armed warfare against slavery 
which was now taking shape in his mind. Gerrit Smith, whom 
Brown had visited on April 8, 1848, before seeing North Elba, 
was greatly pleased at the prospect of having so sturdy and 
experienced a farmer settle on his land, and became forthwith 
a warm friend of his visitor from Springfield." Thus began a 
relationship of enormous value to John Brown as the years 
passed, without which it is by no means certain that he could 
have obtained the "greatest or principal object" of his life to 
the extent he did. No one in the North was more earnest in 
his opposition to slavery than Gerrit Smith, and none could 
reinforce their opinions with such princely generosity, or gave 
as readily and as unselfishly. Chosen a member of Congress 
in 1852, as an independent candidate, Gerrit Smith had long 
been no mean figure in State politics. Indeed, in commenting 
on his going to Congress, Horace Greeley thus described Mr. 
Smith to his readers :^^ "We are heartily glad that Gerrit 
Smith is going to Washington. He is an honest, brave, kind- 
hearted Christian philanthropist, whose religion is not put 
aside with his Sunday cloak, but lasts him clear through the 
week. We think him very wrong in some of his notions of 
political economy, and quite mistaken in his ideas that the 
Constitution is inimical to slavery, and that injustice cannot 
be legalized ; but we heartily wish more such great, pure, loving 
souls could find their way into Congress. He will find his seat 
there anything but comfortable, but his presence there will do 



72 JOHN BROWN 

good, and the country will know him better and esteem him 
more highly than it has yet done." Of this philanthropist 
Brown purchased several farms, paying for them as rapidly as 
his circumstances permitted. 

The first removal of his family to North Elba or Timbucto, 
as it was called in its early days, occurred in the spring of 1849, 
the year of his European trip. As there was no home on his 
land and he could not himself reside much in North Elba, 
because of the necessity of carrying on the business in Spring- 
field, John Brown hired for two years the farm of a Mr. Flan- 
ders, on the road from Keene to Lake Placid." It had a good 
barn on it, but only a tiny one-story house. " It is small," said 
Brown to his family, "but the main thing is all keep good 
natured." Some fine Devon cattle bought in Connecticut 
were driven to the new home by three sons, Owen, Watson and 
Salmon, and with these animals Brown won, in September, 
1850, a prize at the Essex County Fair by an exhibition of cat- 
tle which, according to the annual report of the exhibition so- 
ciety in control, "attracted great attention and added much 
to the interest of the fair." ^^ He was able, also, to buy an ex- 
cellent pair of horses; the driver, Thomas Jefferson, a colored 
man, who at the same time moved his family from Troy to 
North Elba, was in Brown's employ until the first stay in this 
bleak mountain home came to an end. That Brown felt deeply 
his responsibility towards his negro neighbors appears from 
the following extract from a letter, one of many written to 
Willis A. Hodges, who was likewise active in settling negroes 
on the Smith lands : ^^ 

Springfield, Mass. January 22, 1849. 

Friend Hodges — Dear Sir: Yours of the nth January reached 
me a day or two since. We are all glad to hear from you again and 
that you were getting along well with the exception of your own 
ill health. We hope to hear better news from you in regard to that 
the next we get from you. . . . 

Say to my colored friends with you that they will be no losers by 
keeping their patience a little about building lots. They can busy 
themselves in cutting plenty of hard wood and in getting any work 
they can find until spring, and they need not fear getting too much 
wood provided. Do not let anyone forget the vast importance of 
sustaining the very best character for honesty, truth, industry and 
faithfulness. I hope every one will be determined to not merely 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 73 

conduct as well as the whites, but to set them an example in all 
things. I am much pleased that your nephew has concluded to hang 
on like a man. 

With my best wishes for every one, I remain, 

Yours in truth 

John Brown 

P. S. I hear that all are getting through the winter middling well 
at Timbucto, for which I would praise the Lord. J- B. 

The original settlers were not particularly pleased at the 
arrival of so many colored people, and were reluctant at first 
to supply them with provisions, charging, when they did 
so, exorbitant prices. So rapidly were the new arrivals' 
means exhausted that there was some danger of famine. When 
John Brown came on the scene, he at once defended them 
against those who sought to injure them, saving to one col- 
ored man the farm of which he was being cheated. Seeing 
their destitution, he sought in every way to provide work 
for them, and on each Sabbath when he was there, he called 
the negroes together for instruction in the Scriptures. On 
October 25, 1848, before he had moved to North Elba, he 
bought five barrels of pork and five of flour, and shipped 
them to Mr. Hodges; the contents of at least four of these 
barrels were distributed among the needy colored at Tim- 
bucto.*^** But even with all of the supervision and aid John 
Brown and Hodges gave, these settlements were not a success. 
Beautiful as the region was and is, it is not a farming coun- 
try. To live required the most arduous labor in the brief 
summer season. There were few tourists to help out the set- 
tlers' income, and the cold, desolate and bleak winters bore 
heavily upon all, but particularly upon the negroes, many of 
whom were there by virtue of their having fled from slavery 
in the warm Southern States, where they had known hitherto 
no stimulus to labor save the lash. There were good common 
schools, and a church at which, in summer, visiting ministers 
of note preached." But with all that. North Elba was a dreary 
and an inaccessible place, particularly in winter. On one occa- 
sion, strong as he was, John Brown nearly lost his life in the 
deep snow in endeavoring to walk in from Keene. ''Before he 
came within several miles of home," so his daughter Ruth re- 
membered the story, ^- "he got so tired and lame that he had to 



74 JOHN BROWN 

sit down In the road. The snow was very deep and the road but 
little trodden. He got up again after a little while, went on as 
far as he could, and sat down once more. He walked a long 
distance in that way, and at last lay down with fatigue, in the 
deep snow beside the path, and thought he should get chilled 
there and die. While lying so, a man passed him on foot, but 
did not notice him. Father guessed the man thought he was 
drunk, or else did not see him. He lay there and rested a while 
and then started on again, though in great pain, and made out 
to reach the first house, Robert Scott's. . . ." 

Shortly after the Brown family moved into the Flanders 
house at North Elba, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., of Boston, and 
two friends came to their home, June 2^] , 1849, in a state 
of utter exhaustion, having lost their way in the woods and 
been for twenty-four hours without food. They were kindly 
received and cared for. Fortunately, Mr. Dana kept an exten- 
sive diary, which enabled him in after years to publish the fol- 
lowing account from it of his impressions of the Brown family 
in the Adirondacks:"^ 

"The place belonged to a man named Brown, originally from 
Berkshire in Massachusetts, a thin, sinewy, hard-favored, clear- 
headed, honest-minded man, who had spent all his days as a frontier 
farmer. On conversing with him, we found him well informed on 
most subjects, especially in the natural sciences. He had books, 
and had evidently made a diligent use of them. Having acquired 
some property, he was able to keep a good farm, and had confess- 
edly the best cattle and best farming utensils for miles around. 
His wife looked superior to the poor place they lived in, which was a 
cabin, with only four rooms. She appeared to be out of health. He 
seemed to have an unlimited family of children, from a cheerful, 
nice healthy woman of twenty or so, and a full sized red-haired son, 
who seemed to be foreman of the farm, through every grade of boy 
and girl to a couple that could hardly speak plain. . . . June 29, 
Friday — After breakfast, started for home. . . . We stopped at 
the Browns' cabin on our way, and took affectionate leave of the 
family that had shown us so much kindness. We found them at 
breakfast, in the patriarchal style. Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their 
large family of children with the hired men and women, including 
three negroes, all at the table together. Their meal was neat, 
substantial, and wholesome." 

John Brown was at North Elba in January, .1851, soon after 
the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, which stirred him to 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 75 

the depths and had just led him to organize his Springfield 
Gileadites. He at once went around among his colored friends 
who were fugitives and urged them to resist the law at all costs. 
Men and women, he declared, should arm themselves and re- 
fuse to be taken alive. He told his children of this wicked bill, 
and commanded them to join in resisting any attempt that 
might be made to drag back into Southern chains their neigh- 
bors who had been slaves, and to give no thought to possible 
fines and imprisonment. "Our faithful boy, Cyrus," wrote 
Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson afterwards, "was one of that 
class and it aroused our feelings so that we would all have 
defended him, if the women folks had had to resort to hot 
water. Father said 'Their cup of iniquity is almost full.' " 

The reasons for John Brown's abandonment of North Elba 
in 1 85 1, after only two years there, were the burden of the law- 
suits of Perkins & Brown, which kept him travelling about 
from one place to another, and the necessity of continuing in 
partnership with Mr. Perkins in the farming and sheep-raising 
side of their business. It was in March, 1851, that he again 
moved his family, now so accustomed to shifting its domicile, 
back to Akron, the sons driving overland the prize Devon cat- 
tle.^* As we have seen, the partnership with Mr. Perkins could 
not be terminated as quickly thereafter as John Brown had 
hoped, and when it was, he was compelled to work the three 
hired farms for another year before he had accumulated suffi- 
cient money to move back to North Elba and to make possible 
his venture to Kansas. Throughout 1854 he was busily plan- 
ning for his removal to North Elba and for the purchase of an- 
other small farm there. The record-breaking drought of 1854 
ruined many farmers in Ohio, but he fared much better, accord- 
ing to a letter to his children of August 24, 1854, than most 
people. His two sons, Jason and Owen, were living on a large 
farm belonging to Mr. Perkins near Tallmadge; they with 
John Brown, Jr., had, as already stated, made up their minds 
to seek new homes in Kansas, in order to help stem the slave- 
power which, with the opening of that Territory by the Kan- 
sas and Nebraska act of May 30, 1854, was now seeking to 
make Kansas its own. On February 13, 1855, John Brown 
felt certain that he could get off to North Elba with his 
immediate family in March; to accomplish this purpose he 



76 JOHN BROWN 

was willing, if necessary, to sacrifice some of his Devon cat- 
tle.^" Not until June, 1855, however, was he able to make the 
move: 

RocKFORD III 4th June 1855 

Dear Children 

I write just to say that I have finally sold my cattle without mak- 
ing much sacrifise; & expect to be on the way home Tomorrow. 
Oliver expects to remain behind & go to Kansas. After I get home 
I expect to set out with the family for North Elba as soon as we 
can get ready: & we may possibly get off this Week; but hardly 
think we can. I have heard nothing further as yet from the Boys 
at Kansas All were well at home a few days since. 

Your Affectionate Father 

John Brown ^® 

When he and his charges finally arrived at North Elba, they 
moved into an unplastered four-room house, the rudest kind 
of a pioneer home, built for him by his son-in-law, Henry 
Thompson, who had married his daughter Ruth. Here the 
family still lived when the disaster at Harper's Ferry deprived 
it of its head and two of his most promising sons. But though 
John Brown was so attracted by North Elba as to buy three 
farms there," and though the very pioneering aspect of the 
new life appealed to him, his restlessness left him no peace. 
He was now ready to abandon the field to which in the year 
before he had felt himself committed to operate, and to follow 
his sons to Kansas. So strong was the call to duty there that 
he was impelled to leave everything at North Elba, — the un- 
completed house, the newly arrived family with no fixed means 
of support and the severest of winter climates to contend with, 
his activity among his colored neighbors, and his still unpaid 
debts in Ohio and elsewhere. Besides his sons, Owen, Oliver, 
Salmon, Frederick, Jason and John Brown, Jr., Henry Thomp- 
son, too, yielded to the desire to aid in carving out with axe 
and rifle Kansas's destiny. There remained at North Elba 
of the grown sons only Watson, then in his twentieth year, to 
aid their brave mother and home-keeper. But she was quite 
ready to fight cold and privation, if thereby her husband and 
sons could live up to what they as truly considered the call of 
duty as did their Revolutionary ancestor, who gave up his life 
in New York City, the appeal to arms in 1777. 



HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT ^^ 

Thenceforth John Brown could give free rein to his Wander- 
lust; the shackles of business life dropped from him. He was 
now bowed and rapidly turning gray ; to every one's lips the ad- 
jective "old " leaped as they saw him. But his was not the age 
of senility, nor of weariness with life ; nor were the lines of care 
due solely to family and business anxieties, or the hard labor of 
the fields. They were rather the marks of the fires consuming 
within; of the indomitable purpose that was the mainspring of 
every action; of a life devoted, a spirit inspired. Emancipa- 
tion from the counter and the harrow came joyfully to him at 
the time of life when most men begin to long for rest and the 
repose of a quiet, well-ordered home. Thenceforth he was free 
to move where he pleased, to devote every thought to his bat- 
tle with the slave-power he staggered, which then knew no- 
thing of his existence. 

The metamorphosis was now complete. The staid, sombre 
merchant and patriarchal family-head was ready to become 
Captain John Brown of Osawatomie, at the mere mention of 
whose name Border Ruffians and swashbuckling adherents 
of the institution of slavery trembled and often fled. Kansas 
gave John Brown the opportunity to test himself as a guerrilla- 
leader for which he had longed ; for no other purpose did he 
proceed to the Territory; to become a settler there, as he had 
hoped to in Virginia in 1840, was furthest from his thoughts. 
Leadership came readily to him; to those who fell under his 
sway, it seemed as natural that he should become the com- 
mander as that there should be a President in Washington. 
Even those who walked not in his ways respected him as a 
captain of grim determination, of iron will. Of no particular 
distinction as an executive in his business enterprises, he had 
somehow or other acquired in the home circle, in the marts 
of trade, in the quiet fields and woods, that something which 
makes some men as inevitably leaders as others are predes- 
tined to become satellites or lieutenants of those of stronger 
will, greater imagination and clearer prevision. Imagination 
our wool-merchant had, even if its range was not great; for 
when the hour came to act, he was on hand with his nerves 
under control, his head clear, his courage unbounded, ready 
to meet emergencies. Indeed, one may ask if he really had 
nerves, so complete was their subordination to the ego, to the 



78 JOHN BROWN 

will that forced its own way, either when it was a matter of 
convincing rebellious followers of the wisdom of the plan they 
revolted against, or of standing steadily on the scaffold trap- 
door to eternity. Yet this man was the product of piping 
times of peace; of the counting-room and the petty life of the 
rural follower of a trade, which are so widely supposed to 
weaken the fibre, attenuate the blood and develop the craven. 
The secret of this riddle lies not merely in the Puritan inher- 
itances of John Brown, nor in his iron will, nor in his ability 
to visualize himself and his men in a mountain stronghold of 
the Alleghenies. To all these powers of an intense nature were 
added the driving force of a mighty and unselfish purpose, 
and the readiness to devote life itself to the welfare of others. 
However one may dislike the methods he adopted or the 
views he held, here is, after all, the explanation of the forging 
of this rough, natural leader of men. "Why," said one of his 
abolition co-workers, who believed in very different means 
of attacking slavery, "it is the best investment for the soul's 
welfare possible to take hold of something that is righteous 
but unpopular. ... It teaches us to know ourselves, to know 
what we are relying on, whether we love the praise of men, 
or the praise of God." The essentially ennobling feature of 
John Brown's career, that which enabled him to draw men 
to him as if by a magnet, was his willingness to suffer for 
others, — in short, the straightforward unselfishness of the 
man. 

As John Brown left for Kansas, he turned once more 
to the members of his family and said: "If it is so painful 
for us to part with the hope of meeting again, how of poor 
slaves? "^^ 



CHAPTER III 
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 

" If you or any of my family are disposed to go to Kansas or 
Nebraska, with a view to help defeat Satan and his legions in 
that direction, I have not a word to say; hut I feel committed 
to operate in another part of the field. If I were not so com- 
mitted, I would be on my way this fall," — thus it was that 
John Brown wrote to his son John on August 21, 1854.^ The 
latter and his brothers had, as we have seen, grown restless 
in Ohio, where they then resided with but indifferent prospects 
for material success, particularly because of the great damage 
done by the drought of 1854; ^ 3.nd the emigration of their 
uncle, the Rev. Samuel Lyle Adair, to Osawatomie, Kansas, 
had determined their settling in that locality. ^ To Kansas 
they would, however, have gone had he not preceded them, 
for their inherited antipathy to slavery made them earnest 
observers of the exciting political conditions resulting from 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which left to the settlers them- 
selves the decision whether slavery should or should not exist 
within those Territories. This abrogation of the Missouri 
Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery north of 
36° 30' north latitude, roused its enemies in the North to 
unwonted efforts. If, they reasoned, the South could thus 
abrogate a sacred agreement which had for thirt^^-four years 
prevented the growth of slavery toward the North, it might 
within a few years permit the extension of its favorite institu- 
tion to still other portions of the original Louisiana purchase 
acquired from France in 1803. Only seven years had then 
elapsed since the unholy war with Mexico had made possible 
the annexation of the great State of Texas and the other Terri- 
tories acquired by the peace treaty of 1848. That tremendous 
expansion to the south and southwest would, it was thought, 
satisfy the slaveholders for years to come. But the wasteful- 
ness and short-sightedness of their methods of cotton-culture, 
the uneconomic and shiftless character of slave labor itself, 
made the appetite for virgin lands insatiable. 



8o JOHN BROWN 

Moreover, Southern leaders were blind neither to the danger 
to their political supremacy involved in the carving of new 
free States out of the great West, whose possibilities were now 
beginning to be understood because of the rush to Califor- 
nia, nor to the peculiarly dangerous position of their outpost 
State, Missouri.* With Illinois on the east and Iowa on the 
north, if Kansas and Nebraska should become free territory, 
Missouri would be surrounded on three sides by Abolitionists, 
and the safety of her unpaid labor system would be gravely 
menaced. Since the popular indignation in the North had 
failed to prevent the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
for which forty-four Northern Democrats voted in the House 
and fourteen in the Senate, under the lead of Stephen A. 
Douglas, the North could revenge itself only by preventing 
the return to Washington of thirty-seven out of the forty- 
four Congressmen,^ and by throwing itself heartily into the 
work of beating the South at its own game of colonization. 
By emigrant aid societies, by widespread appeals to the 
liberty-loving citizens of the North to settle Kansas, by mass 
meetings and public subscriptions to the funds raised to for- 
ward settlers in large parties to the new Territories, — in a 
hundred different ways, some of the necessary thousands were 
induced to become a living bulwark to the extension of slav- 
ery. Fortunately for them, the propagandists were aided enor- 
mously by the rich character of the Kansas soil, the beauty 
of its prairies, the charm of its climate, and the promise of its 
streams. Had there been no question of slavery or freedom 
involved, there must have been the same prompt taking up 
of the public lands which has inevitably followed the throwing 
open of new territory to settlement. The sons of John Brown 
were no more unmoved by the "glowing accounts of the 
extraordinary fertility, healthfulness and beauty of the terri- 
tory of Kansas," than were thousands of others who sold off 
their homes in New York, Ohio and Illinois to better their 
fortunes beyond the Missouri River. To many of them, as to 
the Browns, the opportunity to help save Kansas from the 
curse of slavery was heartily welcome; to multitudes of others 
this was a subsidiary issue, which interested them but little 
until they suddenly found themselves in the maelstrom of 
Kansas political passions and compelled to take sides, what- 
ever their original opinions or desires. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 8i 

Owen, Frederick and Salmon Brown left Ohio for Kansas, 
all unsuspicious of the tragedies before them, in October, 1854, 
taking eleven head of cattle and three horses, their joint 
property, to Chicago by water, and driving them thence to 
Meridosia, Illinois. Here men and animals wintered until the 
arrival of spring made it possible for them to cross the Mis- 
souri. "^ On April 20, 1855, they entered Kansas, and on May 
7, Jason and John were also at Osawatomie,^ having left Ohio 
with their families at the opening of navigation.* Theirs was 
a typical Kansas settler's journey; to hundreds of other 
Kansas home-seekers would John Brown, Jr.'s narrative of 
this migration read almost as if written of their own experi- 
ences after leaving St. Louis: 

"At this period there were no railroads west of St. Louis; our 
journey must be continued by boat on the Missouri at a time of 
extremely low water, or by stage at great expense. We chose the 
river route, taking passage on the steamer 'New Lucy,' which too 
late we found crowded with passengers, mostly men from the South 
bound for Kansas. That they were from the South was plainly in- 
dicated by their language and dress; while their drinking, profanity, 
and display of revolvers and bowie-knives, openly wearing them as 
an essential part of their make-up, clearly showed the class to which 
they belonged and that their mission was to aid in establishing 
slavery in Kansas. 

"A box of fruit-trees and grape-vines which my brother Jason 
had brought from Ohio, our plow and the few agricultural imple- 
ments we had on the deck of that steamer, looked lonesome, for 
these were all we could see which were adapted to the occupations 
of peace. Then for the first time arose in our mind the query: Must 
the fertile prairies of Kansas, through a struggle at arms, be first 
secured to freedom before free men can sow and reap? If so, how 
poorly were we prepared for such work will be seen when I say that 
for arms for five of us brothers we had only two small squirrel rifles 
and one revolver. But before we reached our destination other 
matters claimed our attention. Cholera, which then prevailed to 
some extent at St. Louis, broke out among our passengers, a num- 
ber of whom died. Among these, Brother Jason's son, Austin, aged 
four years, the elder of his two children, fell a victim to this scourge, 
and while our boat lay by for repair of a broken rudder at Waverley, 
Mo., we buried him at night near that panic-stricken town, our 

* Mrs. Annie Brown Adams states that Salmon and Oliver Brown, as well as 
their father and Henry Thompson, went to Kansas only to fight, not to settle; 
the others were home-seekers. (See her letter of September 5, 1886, to the Kan- 
sas Historical Society.) 



82 JOHN BROWN 

lonely way illumined only by the lightning of a furious thunder- 
storm. 

"True to his spirit of hatred of Northern people, our captain, 
without warning to us on shore, cast off his lines and left us to make 
our way by stage to Kansas City, to which place we had already 
paid our fare by boat. Before we reached there, however, we be- 
came very hungry, and endeavored to buy food at various farm- 
houses on the way; but the occupants, judging from our speech 
that we were not from the South, always denied us, saying, 'We 
have nothing for you.' The only exception to this answer was at 
the stage-house at Independence, Mo. 

"Arrived in Kansas, her lovely prairies and wooded streams 
seemed to us indeed like a haven of rest. Here in prospect we saw 
our cattle increased to hundreds and possibly to thousands, fields 
of corn, orchards, and vineyards. At once we set about the work 
through which only our visions of prosperity could be realized. Our 
tents would suffice for shelter until we could plow our land, plant 
corn and other crops, fruit-trees, and vines, cut and secure us hay 
enough of the waving grass to supply our stock the coming winter."^ 

But if they were thus apparently bent on the occupations of 
peace, they were from the beginning keeping an eye out for 
the clash of arms. In his very first letter from the Territory 
to his father, dated "Brownsville," May 21, 1855, Salmon, 
while mentioning his "very pleasant trip through Missouri," 
added : 

"We saw some of the curses of slavery and they are many. . . . 
The boys have their feelings well worked up so that I think that 
they will fight, there is a great lack of arms here in Brownsville. 
I feel more like fight now than I ever did before and would be glad 
to go to Alabama." 

He reported further that he had no doubt of the success of ■ 
their emigration, for they had as many as five good claims, 
had planted considerably and could already behold the first 
tender shoots pushing their way into the air. Their claims 
were eight miles from Osawatomie, on the very outskirts of 
which stood and yet stands the picturesque log-cabin which 
for nearly fifty years served as the homestead of the Adair 
family, and is still prized by them beyond all other earthly 
possessions. Here the Browns were certain of a hearty wel- 
come from their father's half-sister Florilla and her husband, 
the Rev. Mr. Adair. 

On May 20 and 24, John Brown, Jr., wrote a long, 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 83 

minutely detailed letter to his father, in which appear clearly 
the mixed motives that had led to the emigration. The char- 
acter of the country, the weather encountered, the planting 
operations and the implements in use are all set forth, as well 
as the low financial condition to which their frontier venture 
had already brought them, and their almost general satisfac- 
tion with the change I** 

"... Salmon Fredk and Owen say that they never was in a coun- 
try that begun to please them as well. And I will say, that the 
present prospect for health, wealth, and usefulness much exceeds 
even my most sanguine anticipations. I know of no country where 
a poor man endowed with a share of common sense & with health, 
can get a start so easy. If we can succeed in making this a free State, 
a great work will be accomplished for mankind." 

But the really important part of the letter deals with the 
political impressions already acquired by the new settlers of 
four weeks' standing: 

"And now I come to the matter, that more than all else I intended 
should be the principal subject of this letter. I tell you the truth, 
when I say that while the interest of despotism has secured to its 
cause hundreds and thousands of the meanest and most desperate 
of men, armed to the teeth with Revolvers, Bowie Knives, Rifles 
& Cannon, — while they are not only thoroughly organized, but 
under pay from Slave-holders — the friends of freedom are ?iot one 
fourth of them half armed, and as to Military Organization among 
them it no where exists in this territory unless they have recently 
done something in Lawrence. The result of this is that the people 
here exhibit the most abject and cowardly spirit, whenever their 
dearest rights are invaded and trampled down by the lawless bands 
of Miscreants which Missouri has ready at a moment's call to 
pour in upon them. This is the general effect upon the people here 
so far as I have noticed, there are a few, and but a few exceptions. 
Of course these foreign Scoundrels know what kind of 'Allies' they 
have to meet. They boast that they can obtain possession of the 
polls in any of our election precincts without having to fire a gun. 
I enclose a piece which I cut from a St. Louis paper named the St. 
Louis 'Republican ;' it shows the spirit which moves them. Now 
Missouri is not alone in the undertaking to make this a Slave State. 
Every Slaveholding State from Virginia to Texas is furnishing men 
and money to fasten Slavery upon this glorious land, by means no 
matter how foul. . . . 

"Now the remedy we propose is, that the Anti slavery portion 
of the inhabitants should immediately, thoroughly arm and organize 



84 JOHN BROWN 

themselves in military companies. In order to effect this, some per- 
sons must begin and lead in the matter. Here are 5 men of us who 
are not only anxious to fully prepare, but are thoroughly deter- 
mined to fight. We can see no other way to meet the case. As in 
the language of the memorial lately signed by the people here and 
sent to Congress petitioning help, ' it is no longer a question of negro 
slavery, but it is the enslavement of ourselves.' 

"The General Government may be petitioned until the people 
here are grey, and no redress will be had so long as it makes slavery 
its paramount interest. — We have among us 5, i Revolver, i Bowie 
Knife, i middling good Rifle i poor Rifle, i small pocket pistol 
and 2 slung shot. What we need in order to be thoroughly armed 
for each man, is i Colts large sized Revolver, i Allen & Thurbers' 
large sized Revolver manufactured at Worcester, Mass, i Minnie 
Rifle — they are manufactured somewhere in Mass or Connecticut 
(Mr. Paine of Springfield would probably know) and i heavy Bowie 
Knife — I think the Minnie Rifles are made so that a sword bayo- 
net may be attached. With these we could compete with men who 
even possessed Cannon. The real Minnie Rifle has a killing range 
almost equal to Cannon and of course is more easily handled, per- 
haps enough so to make up the difference. Now we want you to 
get for us these arms. We need them more than we do bread. Would 
not Gerrit Smith or someone, furnish the money and loan it to us 
for one, two or three years, for the purpose, until we can raise 
enough to refund it from the Free soil of Kanzas? ..." 

This appeal for arms John Brown could not have resisted 
had he desired to. He subsequently recorded that on the 
receipt of this letter he was "fully resolved to proceed at once 
to Kansas; and join his children." i*^ The wish to "operate 
elsewhere" had disappeared early in 1855. Indeed, before the 
second detachment of his sons had started, he had begun to 
arrange his alTairs so that he too might emigrate. On February 
13 he notified John \V. Cook, of Wolcottville, Conn., of his 
intentions : 

"Since I saw you I have undertaken to direct the opperations of 
a Surveying, & exploring party, to be employed in Kansas for a 
considerable time perhaps for some Two or Three years; & I lack 
for time to make all my arrangements, & get on to the ground in 
season." ^^ 

Labor as he might, he was not able to dispose of his cattle, 
wind up odds and ends of his business in Illinois, Ohio and 
New England, collect arms for his sons, take leave of his 
family at North Elba and start for the W^est, until the middle 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 85 

of August. On June 28 he was at Syracuse, attending a con- 
vention of anti-slavery men who called themselves Radical 
Political Abolitionists. Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith, 
Lewis Tappan and Samuel J. May were among the speakers, 
as well as John Brown, and the convention unanimously 
resolved that its members should do what they could to 
prevent the return of fugitives. There was, however, con- 
siderable difference of opinion in consequence of the proposal 
to raise money for John Brown, that he might collect arms 
for his sons. Douglass, of course, spoke earnestly in Brown's 
behalf. Others were unwilling to encourage violence, but, as 
Douglass afterwards reported : "The collection was taken up 
with much spirit, nevertheless; for Capt. Brown was present 
and spoke for himself; and when he spoke men believed in the 
man." 12 He received in all about sixty dollars in cash, twenty 
dollars being from Gerrit Smith, and five dollars from an old 
British Army officer, Charles Stuart. By April 24 he was able 
to ship from Springfield to Cleveland a box of firearms and 
flasks, which he subsequently picked up in Cleveland on his 
way West. ^3 

Ex-SherifT S. A. Lane, of Akron, testified, in an interview 
printed in the Akron Beacon- Journal of February i, 1898, 
that during his visit to Akron, on his way West in August, 
Brown held open meetings in one of the public halls of the 
village. Because of their interest in the Kansas crisis, and 
in the Browns, their former neighbors, the people were quickly 
roused by Brown's graphic words, and liberally contributed 
arms of all sorts, ammunition and clothing. Committees of 
aid were appointed, and Lane was deputed to accompany 
Brown in a canvass of the village shops and offices for contri- 
butions.^ Several cases of guns belonging to the State of Ohio, 
then being collected from the disbanded militia companies 
of Akron and Tallmadge, were "spirited away" to the same 
end. General Lucius V. Bierce later testified to his own gift 
-of broadswords, the property of a defunct filibustering com- 
pany. On the 15th of August, Brown reported to those remain- 
ing at North Elba that he was leaving Cleveland via Hudson, 
and would have been off before had he not met with such suc- 
cess in obtaining "Guns Revolvers, Swords, Powder, Caps, 
& money, " that he thought it best to "detain a day or Two 



86 JOHN BROWN 

longer on that account." He had raised nearly two hundred 
dollars in that way in the two previous days, principally 
in arms and ammunition, i-* But the harvest being gathered, 
he and his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, arrived in Chicago 
August 1 8, after stopping at Cleveland and Detroit, where they 
met Oliver Brown and at once prepared for the overland jour- 
ney by buying a "nice young horse for which we paid here 
$120, but have so much load that we shall have to walk a good 
deal; enough probably, to give opportunity to supply our- 
selves with game. We have provided the most of what we need 
on our outward march " — so Brown wrote to his ** Dear Wife 
and Children; every one" on August 23, the day of leaving 
Chicago, with solemn injunctions to write often and to direct 
the letters to Oliver, since Oliver's name was "not so common 
as either Henry's or mine.''^^ fhe heavily loaded one-horse 
wagon was in obedience to advice from John Brown, Jr., who 
opined that his father would find it just what he wanted in 
Kansas to carry on the business of surveying. Moreover, this 
method of reaching Osawatomie was, if the slowest, the best 
and cheapest way of travelling, particularly because the 
navigation of the Missouri River was, as the son put it, "a 
horrid business in a low stage of water which is a considerable 
portion of the year."^*' 

Not that roughing it could discourage John Brown, as we 
know. There was found, after his capture in Virginia, in his 
papers, the beginnings of an autobiographical volume en- 
tided: ' A brief history of John Brown, otherwise (old B) and 
his family: as connected With Kansas; By one who knows.' " 
This was composed early in August, 1858, for on the 9th 
of that month he wrote to his son John from Moneka, Kansas, 
asking that certain letters and other material be sent him 
for this book, which, had it been completed, would have been 
sold for "the benefit of the whole of my family, or to promote 
the cause of Freedom as may hereafter appear best for both 
objects." * 18 In this all too brief fragment, written in the third 
person, appears the story of his trip to Kansas, including 

* "I am certain," he added, "from the manner in which I have been pressed 
to narrate, and the greedy swallowing everywhere of what I have told, and com- 
plaints in the newspapers voluntarily made of my backwardness to gratify the 
public, that the book would find a ready sale." 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 87 

fresh assurance from his own pen that "with the exposures, 
privations, hardships, and wants, of pioneer Hfe he was 
famihar; & thought he could benefit his Children and the 
new beginners from the older parts of the country and help 
them to shift." 

The nice, stout young horse had all he could do, so Brown 
records, to drag the load when he and his son and son-in-law 
left Chicago behind them. Hence, continues his own narra- 
tive, just cited: 

, "Their progress was extremely slow; & just before getting into 
Missouri their horse got the distemper: after which for most of 
the journey they could only gain some Six to Eight miles in a day. 
This however gave them great opportunity for seeing & hearing 
in Missouri. Companies of armed men, and individuals were con- 
stantly passing and repassing Kansaswise continually boasting of 
what deeds of patriotism; & chivalry they had performed in Kansas; 
& of the still more mighty deeds they were yet to do. No man of 
them would blush when telling of their cruel treading down & ter- 
rifying of defenceless Free State men; they seemed to take peculiar 
satisfaction in telling of the fine horses, & mules they had many 
of them killed in their numerous expeditions against the d — d 
Abolitionists. The coarse, vulgar, profane, jests, & th« bloodthirsty 
brutual feelings to which they were giving vent continually would 
have been a most exquisite treat to Ears; and their general appear- 
ance to the Eys of the past and the present Administration. Of 
this there cannot be the slightest doubt or of the similiarly refined 
feeling amongst their truly Democratic supporters and the dough 
faces. Witness the rewards of such men as Clark and others. 

" On the way at Waverly Missouri he took up the body of his little 
grandson who had died of cholera . . . thinking it would afford 
some relief to the broken hearted Father and Mother they having 
been obliged to leave him amidst the ruffian-like people by whom 
(for the most part) they were themselves so inhumanly treated in 
their distress. The parents were almost frenzied with joy on being 
told that the body of their dear child was again with them. On his 
arrival at the place where his sons had located he found all the com- 
pany completely prostrate with sickness (Chill fever, and Fever 
and Ague) except the wife of John Jr and her little boy of some three 
years old. The strongest of all the five men scarcely able to bring 
in their Cows, cut their fuel, bring the water, and grind the little 
corn which with a little dried fruit they had left; a very few Potatoes 
they had raised and a small supply of milk. ..." 

One picturesque and characteristic incident of the crossing 
of the enemy's territory John Brown himself did not record, 



88 JOHN BROWN 

since fate intervened here and prevented the addition of 
another word to what was to have been his first venture 
into Hterature. His son-in-law, Henry Thompson, relates that 
when they reached the Missouri River at Brunswick, Missouri, 
they set themselves down to await the ferry. There came to 
them an old man, frankly Missourian, frankly inquisitive after 
the manner of the frontier. "Where," said he, "are you go- 
ing?" "To Kansas," replied John Brown. "Where from?" 
asked theold man. " From New York," answered John Brown. 
"You won't live to get there." "We are prepared," said John 
Brown, "wo/ to die alone.'" Before that spirit and that eagle 
eye, the old man quailed; he turned and left.^^ 

It was on October 6 that the advance guard of the car- 
avan reached the family settlement at Osawatomie. Brown 
himself, being very tired, did not cover the last mile or two 
until the next day. They arrived in an all but destitute con- 
dition, with but sixty cents between them, to find the little 
family settlement in great distress, not only because of the 
sickness already noted, but because of the absence of any 
shelter save tents. The bitterly cold and cutting winds, which 
did much to disillusionize so many of the emigrants, kept 
the Browns shivering over their little fires, and the exposure 
added to their ill-health. The crops that had been raised were 
not cared for; there was no meat, little sugar, and nothing 
to make bread with, save corn ground by great labor in a 
hand mill two miles ofif.^o The men, enfeebled by the chills 
and ague which racked, sooner or later, all the new arrivals 
in Kansas, had lost their initiative and vigor, and needed the 
resolute sternness of the head of the family to stimulate them 
to new efforts. By postponing the building of cabins, they 
had been able to devote themselves to the crops; and the 
abundance of excellent corn, potatoes, pumpkins, squashes, 
melons, beans, etc., which had earlier constituted their fare, 
compensated them for most of the inconveniences they had 
been compelled to put up with, so wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr., 
to her mother-in-law at North Elba.^i 

But the time had more than arrived when they should 
devote themselves to home-building. On October 25 there 
was the "hardest freezing" John Brown had ever witnessed 
south of North Elba at that season of the year, as he reported 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 89 

to his wife, in order that she should know, "in that misera- 
ble Frosty region" of North Elba, that "those here are not 
altogether in Paradise." ^^ Indeed, nobody in Kansas that 
unusually cold winter of 1855-56 knew what comforts were. 
Had there been no political anxieties to vex them, the frightful 
hardships of pioneering and the acclimating sicknesses would 
have made that period truly dreadful to look back upon. 
While the Browns paid the penalty for living on low ground 
in a ravine and in tents, that first summer, their bitter experi- 
ence was yet vastly better than that of many another family. 
Starvation and death looked in at many a door where parents 
lay helpless, while famished children crawled the unboarded 
floors crying for food, shrieking with fear if any footstep 
approached, lest the comer be a Border Rufifian instead of a 
friend. For pure misery and heart-breaking suffering, these 
pioneer tales of Kansas in 1855-58 are not surpassed by any 
in the whole history of the winning of the West.* 

By November 2, Jason's and John's "shanties" were well 
advanced; by the 23d, their father reported these two fam- 
ilies so well sheltered that they would not suffer any more, 
and that he had made some progress in preparing another 
house, in the face of icy rains and freezing nights. "Still," 
wrote the indomitable directing spirit, "God has not 'for- 
saken us;' & we get 'day by day our dayly Bread;' & I wish 
we had a great deal more gratitude to mingle with our unde- 
served blessings."" One dread that had worried them prior 
to their departure from home proved unnecessary. "You 
recollect we used to talk a great deal about the Indians," 
wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr., "and how much I feared them 
— they are the least of my troubles — there is scarcely a day 
but they go along in sight of us in droves of from 30 to 40, 
sometimes more and sometimes less, and frequently four or 
five of them will come galloping up to see us; they have always 
treated us perfectly civil and I believe if we treat them the 

* See, for instance, Mrs. M. D. Colt, Wetit to Kansas, Watertown, New York, 
1862; Mrs. Sara T. L. Robinson's Kansas, its Interior and Exterior Life, Bos- 
ton, 1858; Thaddeus Hyatt's MS. Journal of Investigations in Kansas, 1856-57, 
Kansas Historical Society; Six Months in Kansas, by a Lady (Hannah Anderson 
Ropes), Boston, 1856; ' Memoir of Samuel Walker,' in Kansas Historical Society 
Collections, \o\. 6, pp. 249-274; Three Years on the Kansas Border, by a Clergy- 
man of the Episcopal Church, New York, 1856. 



90 JOHN BROWN 

same they will do us no harm." ^^ Her prophecy was a correct 
one. It was not the red but the white men of the border they 
had to fear. Terrified as they were when the first big band 
of Sacs and Foxes in war-paint surrounded their tents, whoop- 
ing and yelling, the Browns had the good sense to ground their 
arms, and the Indians did likewise. Thereafter both sides were 
great friends. John, Jr., went often to visit their old chief; 
once, when, in the following summer, the Indians came to call 
in numbers, they were "fought" with gifts of melons and 
green corn. "That," says Jason Brown, "was the nicest party 
I ever saw." 

John Brown, Jr., used to ask the old chief questions, as: 
"Why do you Sacs and Foxes not build houses and barns like 
the Ottawas and Chippewas? Why do you not have schools 
and churches like the Delawares and Shawnees? Why do you 
have no preachers and teachers?" And the chief replied in a 
staccato which summed up wonderfully the bitter, century- 
long frontier experience of his people: "We want no houses 
and barns. We want no schools and churches. We want no 
preachers and teachers. We bad enough now." " 

The men really to be feared were not long in putting in 
appearance. A few days after the arrival of the Brown ad- 
vance guard in April, six or eight heavily armed Missourians 
rode up and inquired if any stray cattle had been seen in that 
neighborhood. On receiving a prompt negative, in the ver- 
nacular of the border they inquired how the newcomers were 
"on the goose." "We are Free State," was the answer, "and 
more than that, we are Abolitionists." The visitors rode away 
at once and, says Jason Brown, "from that moment we were 
marked for destruction. Before we had been in the Territory 
a month, we found we had to go armed and to be prepared 
to defend our lives." The leader of that band of Missourians 
might not have been allowed to ride away, had the outspoken 
Northerners before them realized the sinister part the Rev. 
Martin White was to play in their lives, — if they could have 
dreamed that he was to shoot down one of their number in 
cold blood within a twelvemonth. ^^ 

It must be said, however, that the Browns were aggressive 
from the beginning. They not only nailed their colors to the 
mast and let all who would behold them, but they gave play 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 91 

to those feelings which, as Salmon reported, had been so well 
worked up in crossing Missouri. John Brown, Jr., Jason, 
Frederick and Owen eagerly attended Free State settlers' 
meetings," and the first-named figured soon in the political 
history of the Territory. On the afternoon of Monday, June 
25. 1855, he was elected a vice-president of the Free State 
convention which, then in session at Lawrence, solemnly 
urged all the people of Kansas to throw away their differences 
and make the freedom of Kansas the sole issue. Its mem- 
bers called upon Free State representatives to resign from 
the bogus Shawnee Legislature chosen by Missouri votes, 
declared that the convention did not feel that its members 
should obey any laws of the Legislature's exacting, and finally 
resolved, with a spirit that must have gratified every Brown, 
"That in reply to the threats of war so frequently made in our 
neighbor state, our answer is, 'WE ARE READY.' " ^s Natu- 
rally, John Brown, Jr.'s participation in this expression of 
feeling — he was a member of the committee on resolutions 
— did not improve his standing with his Southern neighbors, 
of whom a good many were soon to be free with their threats 
and boasts that they would drive off every Yankee. ^^ But 
this did not deter him in the least from attending the radical 
Lawrence gathering of August 15, in which, according to the 
Herald of Freedom, he was a member of the steering, or busi- 
ness committee, nor from becoming a member of the first 
Territorial Executive Committee, an outgrowth of the Big 
Springs convention of September 5.2" 

When the fraudulent Pawnee Legislature convened, July 
2, 1855, it enacted, true to its lawless inception, a code of 
punishments for Free State men that must always rank as 
one of the foremost monuments of legislative tyranny and 
malevolence in the history of this country. Under that code 
no one conscientiously opposed to slavery, or who failed to 
admit the right of everybody to hold slaves, could serve as a 
juror; and the right to hold office was restricted to pro-slavery 
men. Five years at hard labor was to be the fate of any one 
introducing literature calculated to make a slave disorderly 
or dangerous or disaffected. Death itself was the penalty for 
raising a rebellion among slaves or supplying them with 
literature which advised them to rise or conspire against any 



92 JOHN BROWN 

citizen. The mere voicing of a belief that slavery was illegal 
in Kansas was made a grave crime, in the following words: 

"Sec. 12: Ifany free person, by speaking or writing, assert ormain- 
tain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory, 
print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into the 
Territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet or circular, con- 
taining any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this 
Territory, such persons shall be deemed guilty of felony, and pun- 
ished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not less than 
five years." ^' 

This clause was obviously aimed at the New York Tribune 
and other anti-slavery journals, and was meant to be an 
effective padlock upon free speech. General J. H. String- 
fellow, a resident of Atchison and the Speaker of the House 
that passed this gag-law, boasted that it and other legislation 
"will be enforced to the very letter." ^^ This challenge John 
Brown, Jr., promptly accepted. The code from which we 
have quoted became operative on September 15, 1855. What 
he did on that day, John Brown, Jr., recorded on the next in 
a letter to his mother: 

"Yesterday I told a man who I since learn has a slave here that 
no man had a right to hold a slave in Kansas, that I called on him 
to witness that I had broken this law and that I still intended to 
do so at all times and at all places, and further that if any officer 
should attempt to arrest me for a violation of this law and should 
put his vilainous hands on me, I would surely kill him so help me 
God. He made no reply but rode off. — Nothing is now wanting 
but an attempt to enforce this Law with others of like import, which 
Gov. Shannon has declared he will do, and we shall have war here 
to the knife." ^^ 

"Perhaps," wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to her brother-in- 
law, Watson, then at North Elba, "we shall all get shot for 
disobeying their beautiful laws, but you might as well die here 
in a good cause as freeze to death there." ^^ The belligerent 
attitude of the men of her party might well have given her 
anxiety. It was as if they had intended from the first to make 
Osawatomie the storm centre of southeastern Kansas, and 
to bring down upon them the special attentions of the most 
radical men on the other side of the border, men of the type 
of General Stringfellow, a brother of B. F. Stringfellow, who 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 93 

declared on August 28, 1855, in his newspaper, the Sqttatter 
Sovereign, pubHshed at Atchison, Kansas, on the Missouri line: 

"We can tell the impertinent scoundrels of the [New York] Tribune 
that they may exhaust an ocean of ink, their Emigrant Aid Societies 
spend their millions and billions, their representatives in Congress 
spout their heretical theories till doomsday, and his excellency 
Franklin Pierce appoint abolitionist after free-soiler as governor, 
yet we will continue to tar and feather, drown, lynch and hang 
every white-livered abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil."" 



"35 



With those and other threats ringing in their ears, the sons 
of John Brown unloaded the arms donated by friends of free 
Kansas in the East and hauled by that stout young horse 
across Illinois and Missouri, while John Brown himself sur- 
veyed the settlement of Osawatomie, whose name was hence- 
forth to be linked with his and thus obtain an imperishable 
place in American history, although his own stay in the simple 
frontier settlement was to be brief indeed, — not eleven 
months in all. 

To Kansas John Brown came with no thought of settling. 
Surveying was to give him a livelihood while he remained, 
but he came to fight, prepared to battle along that Kansas- 
Missouri line for two or three years, by which time he felt 
the victory should be won, and he be free to assail slavery at 
another point. 3<' The Kansas country delighted him. Indeed, 
he told his children that, if a younger man, he would certainly 
stay with them, but that so long as he had a good farm at 
North Elba, he felt that by common industry he could main- 
tain his wife and daughters there while his sons settled where 
fancy led them.^^ He went so far, on his arrival, as to think 
of taking a claim near his sons' settlement, but the battles 
and tragedies of the immediate future prevented his consider- 
ing the matter further. ^^ In March, 1859, he wrote to John 
Teesdale that ''it has been my deliberate judgment since 1855 
that the most ready and effectual way to retrieve Kansas 
would be to meddle directly with the peculiar institution." 
He arrived ready to grapple with it, to meet violence with 
violence, to do to the Border Ruffians what they were doing 
to Free Soilers. To accomplish this, he was ready to take from 
the pro-slavery men their chattels, whether living or immo- 
bile, and even their lives. 



94 JOHN BROWN 

Until well into the spring of 1855 the drift of affairs in 
Kansas had been wholly against the Free Soilers, despite the 
emigration from New England. ^^ Bona fide Missouri settlers 
were naturally first in the field, by reason of their proximity 
to the newly opened lands, and were quicker in organizing, 
under the leadership of Atchison and of the Stringfellow 
brothers and their allies. They were on hand at the first elec- 
tion held in the Territory, November 29, 1854, for a delegate 
to Congress, and to their aid came hundreds of residents of 
Missouri, on horseback and in wagons, with guns, bowie- 
knives, revolvers and plenty of whiskey. Encamping near the 
polling places, ^'^ on election day, these visitors cast 1729 fraud- 
ulent votes ^1 to the satisfaction of their leaders, thus electing 
the pro-slavery candidate. General J. W. Whitfield. Atchi- 
son, on November 6, had pointed out in a speech at Weston, 
Missouri, how easily the trick could be turned: "When you 
reside in one day's journey of the Territory, and when your 
peace, your quiet and your property depend upon your action, 
you can without an exertion send five hundred of your young 
men who will vote in favor of your institutions. Should each 
county in the State of Missouri only do its duty, the question 
will be decided quietly and peaceably at the ballot-box. If we 
are defeated, then Missouri and the other Southern States 
will have shown themselves recreant to their interests and 
will deserve their fate."^^ ^g [^ happened, "some of the lead- 
ing men of Missouri, comprising merchants, doctors and law- 
yers, were recognized among the ballot-box stuffers." Judges, 
too, were there, and the city attorney of St. Joseph. There 
was nothing concealed about the transaction. The coming 
of the Missourians was foretold by Free Soil correspond- 
ents. ^^ When the visitors had closed the polls, they gayly 
shouted, "All aboard for Kansas City and Westport," and 
drove or rode away.*^ In one district, the seventh, seventy- 
five miles from the Missouri line, — which had three months 
afterward only 53 voters according to the official census, — 
there were cast 604 votes. The Howard Committee * reported 
that fully 584 of these were illegal.'*^ 

* Authorized by the House of Representatives, March 19, 1856, to investigate 
the Kansas situation. It consisted of William A. Howard, of Michigan, John 
Sherman, of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 95 

This invasion, curiously enough, was quite unnecessary 
to carry the day for Missouri, for the Free Soilers were then 
in a numerical minority to the bona fide Missouri settlers, as 
also when the official census was taken three months later, 
in February, 1855.^*^ Indeed, for fully eight months after the 
opening of the Territory on July i, 1854, the Missourians 
bade fair to overrun Kansas. Moreover, at the time of the 
election, the Free Soilers were divided in their counsels, with- 
out recognized leaders or a definite policy, and took little inter- 
est in the voting, not one-half of them going to the polls/^ But 
the appetite for illegal interference in a sister State grew with 
its indulgence. The victory of November 29 was proclaimed 
as a great and lasting triumph for the slavery forces. The 
Kansas Herald of Leavenworth announced that "the triumph 
of the pro-slavery party is complete and overwhelming, . . . 
Kansas is saved," ^^ and its jubilation was echoed throughout 
Missouri. The St. Louis Pilot rejoiced "at this decisive result, 
— as well on account of the success of General Whitfield, 
as that it will tend to quiet the fear and anxiety pervading 
the Western frontier, that this State would be flanked on the 
west with an unprincipled set of fanatics and negro-thieves, 
imported expressly to create annoyance, and disturb the social 
relations of the people of the frontier counties." ^^ The friends 
of liberty in the East were correspondingly depressed. "We 
believe that there are at this hour four chances that Kansas 
will be a Slave State to one that she will be Free," wrote Hor- 
ace Greeley in the Tribime of December 7. In Washington it 
was generally thought that the South had possessed itself of 
Kansas,^'* even though the February, 1855, census showed that 
only 192 slaves had been taken into the Territory, in which 
there were also 151 free negroes. "Some of the Southern men 
coolly say they have taken Kansas so easily that they think 
it may be worth while to take Nebraska also," reported 
Greeley's Washington correspondent on February 13, 1855. 

Naturally, in the East the November invasion was used by 
the Tribune and other backers of the Emigrant Aid Societies 
to stimulate recruiting for the Kansas holy war." On the 
other hand, the arrival of bands of New Englanders sent out 
by the Emigrant Aid Societies, the first of which reached Law- 
rence August I, 1854,^- had intensely inflamed the Missouri- 



96 JOHN BROWN 

ans, and continued to do so for the next two years. "Shall 
we allow such cut-throats and murderers, as the people of 
Massachusetts are, to settle in the territory adjoining our own 
state?" asked the Liberty Platform, a Missouri border news- 
paper, in June, 1854; and it answered its own question thus: 
"No! If popular opinion will not keep them back, we should 
see what virtue there is in the force of arms." " In August, 
on hearing of the arrival of the first Emigrant Aid party, the 
Platte County Argus declared that: "It is now time to sound 
the alarm. We know we speak the sentiments of some of the 
most distinguished statesmen of Missouri when we advise that 
counter-organizations be made both in Kansas and Missouri 
to thwart the reckless course of the Abolitionists. We must 
meet them at their own threshold and scourge them back 
to their covers of darkness. They have made the issue, and 
it Is for us to meet and repel them." ^* To the Missourians 
in 1854 ^^^ later, their fellow countrymen from the historic 
Bay State appeared the scum of Northern cities, hired to vote, 
and not intending to settle Kansas in a normal way; "the 
lowest class of rowdies;" "the most unmitigated looking set 
of blackguards;" "hellish emigrants and paupers whose 
bellies are filled with beggars' food;" men of "black and 
poisonous hearts," ^^ — thus had one section of Americans 
been set against their brothers by the divine institution of 
slavery. "Riff-raff," "scoundrels" and "criminals" were 
mild adjectives applied to Eastern settlers, in whose eyes the 
Border Ruffians were an equally low and degraded set of 
beings, drunken bandits "armed to the teeth" and revelling 
in cruelty, — in brief, fiends Incarnate. "Rough, coarse, 
sneering, swaggering, dare-devil looking rascals as ever swung 
upon a gallows," was the way Dr. J. V. S. Smith, of Boston, 
characterized them.^^ 

"Reader," asked William A. Phillips, the Kansas corre- 
spondent of the Tribune, "did you ever see a Border Rufiian? 
. . . Imagine a fellow, tall, slim, but athletic, with yellow 
complexion, hairy-faced, with a dirty flannel shirt, or red 
or blue, or green, a pair of common-place, but dark-colored 
pants, tucked into an uncertain altitude by a leather belt, in 
which a dirty-handled bowie-knife is stuck rather ostenta- 
tiously, an eye slightly whiskey-red, and teeth the color of a 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 97 

walnut. Such is your Border Ruffian of the lowest type." 
"In a representation," he added, "of the 'Forty Thieves,' 
they would have been invaluable, with their grim visages, 
their tipsy expression, and, above all, their oaths and unap- 
proachable swagger."" To Thomas H. Gladstone, a relative 
of the great statesman of that name, the Border Ruffians 
seemed to be "wearing the most savage looks and giving 
utterance to the most horrible imprecations and blasphemies. 
. . . Looking around at these groups of drunken, bellowing, 
blood-thirsty demons, who crowded around the bar of the 
house shouting for drink, or vented their furious noise on the 
levee without, I felt that all my former experiences of border 
men and Missourians bore faint comparison with the spec- 
tacle presented by the wretched crew, who appeared only the 
more terrifying from the darkness of the surrounding night." ^^ 
This of the men he met in Kansas City after they returned 
from the sacking of Lawrence in 1856. The earlier invaders 
of Kansas Mrs. Charles Robinson described as "rough, bru- 
tal-looking men, of most nondescript appearance ; " "bands of 
whiskey-drinking, degraded, foul-mouthed marauders." ^^ 

Undoubtedly their ranks did include the scum of the bor- 
der; that was inevitable. But, aside from their desire to foster 
slavery in Kansas, they had been easily convinced by their 
leaders that the coming by droves of New England Yankees 
actually menaced their homes, their wives and children, their 
property, human or otherwise. As soon as Kansas was sub- 
merged by the incoming tide of Abolition, the anti-slavery 
attack was to be directed against Missouri and Texas, and 
then the fall of slavery would be certain. Senator Atchison, 
in his speech at Weston which has already been cited, de- 
clared that "if we cannot do this [take Kansas], it is an omen 
that the institution of Slavery is to fail in this and the other 
Southern States." As late as July, 1856, the Charleston, S. C, 
Courier affirmed that: "Now, upon the proposition that the 
safety of the institution of Slavery in South Carolina is de- 
pendent upon its establishment in Kansas, there can be no 
rational doubt." "The touchstone of our political existence 
is Kansas — that is the question," wrote the Washington cor- 
respondent of the Charleston Mercury, January 5, 1856, six 
months earlier. ®° For what other purpose could the Yankees 



98 JOHN BROWN 

be carrying arms, was asked after the election in 1855, when 
Charles Robinson succeeded, through his agent, George W. 
Deitzler, in obtaining Sharp's rifles from the officers of the 
Emigrant Aid Society in Boston, they being shipped to him 
labelled "Revised Statutes" and "Books."«i 

Elated as they were by their triumph at the polls in the first 
election, the Missourians were disposed to take no chances of 
defeat when the second one took place. This was called by 
the first Territorial Governor, Andrew H. Reeder, for March 
30, 1855,*^^ and in preparing for it the Missouri pro-slavery 
men displayed that talent for rapid military organization 
which was so evident in the South in 1861. Since this elec- 
tion was for the choice of the first Territorial Legislature, its 
importance was far greater than the mere selection of a dele- 
gate to Congress. Both sides felt that whoever chose the Legis- 
lature settled the destiny both of the Territory and of the 
future State of Kansas as well. No one could accuse the Free 
Soilers of lacking interest this time. But they were still too 
young upon the soil, and had not suffered enough indigni- 
ties, to make them united for a common cause. Moreover, 
the winter of 1854-55 had been not only unusually mild, but 
politically quiet as well.^^ Hence the Missourians again car- 
ried everything before them when they invaded Kansas for 
the second time to deny to its citizens of Northern and 
Eastern origin the votes to which they were rightfully enti- 
tled. They came by companies, each assigned to its special 
field of activity, and overawed every election district save 
one.^^ One thousand men devoted their attention to Lawrence 
as the home of the most Abolitionists.^^ Some of these had 
belonged to the then disbanded Platte County, Missouri, 
"Self- Defensive Association," which by formal vote of its 
members was pledged to "bring to immediate punishment 
all Abolitionists," and to remove from Kansas Territory on 
demand of any citizen of that Territory, "any and all emi- 
grants who go there under the auspices of the Northern Emi- 
grant Associations." ^^ The Blue Lodges, similar organizations 
foK the protection of Missouri by making Kansas impossible 
to all save emigrants from the South, were well in evidence. 
Each wagon of the raiders bore the designation of an order 
or lodge." What happened on March 30 was merely a repe- 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 99 

tition of November 29 on a larger and bolder and more flagrant 
scale. The violations of law and order, the stuffing of the 
ballot-boxes, the terrorizing of the Free Soilers, the expelling 
of Northern election officials, — in brief, the subversion of the 
most precious of our free institutions was complete. The 
saeredness of the ballot was nowhere respected. Of the 6307 
votes cast, nearly five-sixths were those of the invaders. ^^ 
The thirty-nine men who were elected were all representatives 
of the South, with one exception. Seven of the pro-slavery men 
Governor Reeder unseated, not because of the frauds, but be- 
cause of technical flaws in their election. He later explained 
his not declaring more seats vacant, although he knew that 
the whole election was a fraud, by stating that no other com- 
plaints had been filed, and that he thus lacked official infor- 
mation, — a valid technical excuse. Complaints were not 
readily made because the Missourians threatened with death 
any who might venture to file them. Indeed, the Governor 
deserves some credit for unseating those legislators he did. 
He rendered his decision in a room crowded by fourteen of 
his friends, all armed, and by the thirty-nine successful can- 
didates, veritable walking arsenals !^^ But no shooting oc- 
curred. The Missourians were well content with the dis- 
qualification of only seven of their number. Subsequently, 
they summarily ousted the seven Free Soilers legally elected 
to fill these vacancies, and the remaining Free Soil member 
promptly resigned.^'' The Legislature was thus pro-slavery 
throughout. 

It must not be thought that this high-handed outrage, 
which fairly set the North aflame with indignation, went 
without reprobation from the soberer elements in Missouri. 
The exultant Stringfellows and Atchisons represented the 
blood and thunder pro-slaveryites; but there were other 
voices. To their credit be it recorded that the Parkville 
Luminary, Boonville Observer, Independence Messenger, Jef- 
ferson City Inquirer, Missouri Democrat, St. Louis Intelli- 
gencer, Columbia Statesman, Western Reporter, Glasgow Times, 
Fulton Telegraph, Paris Mercury and Hannibal Messenger 
spoke out bravely against the invasion of Kansas by mobs and 
the frauds at the polls. ^^ For its conscientious scruples the 
Parkville Luminary promptly met an unmerited fate. It was 



100 JOHN BROWN 

completely destroyed on April 14, its plant being thrown into 
the river and its editors warned that, if found in town three 
weeks later, they would follow their type into the Missouri. 
If they moved to Kansas, the mob assured them, they would 
be followed and hanged wherever found. ^^ jf ^ citizens' meet- 
ing at Webster, Missouri, highly approved of this action and 
asserted that they had "no arguments against abolition papers 
but Missouri River, bonfire and hemp rope," " there were 
plenty of more conservative citizens. Unfortunately, they 
remained in the minority; but to them appealed the argument 
that if the entire border population of Missouri were to move 
into Kansas, the injury to Missouri's progress and prosperity 
would be great. They felt, all the more as they were attached 
to their own homes, that upon the States farther South rested 
the duty of colonizing Kansas. ^^ 

The first Territorial Legislature, which so thoroughly mis- 
represented Kansas, met at Pawnee on July 2. After un- 
seating the Free Soil delegates and organizing, it adjourned 
to meet again at Shawnee on July 16. This change of location 
gave Governor Reeder the opportunity which he had been 
seeking. He had vetoed the removal bill, only to have it 
passed over his veto.''^ He then declared that the Legislature 
was no longer a legal body. In this contention he was not 
upheld by the Chief Justice of the Territory, S. D. Lecompte, 
the Associate Justice, Rush Elmore, and the United States 
District Attorney, A. J. Isacks,^^ and the Legislature there- 
after went its own way and had little to do with the Execu- 
tive. It did, however, petition President Pierce for Reeder's 
removal. Its messenger learned on his way that Reeder had 
been dismissed from office on July 28, ostensibly not because 
of the quarrel with the Legislature, but because of his specu- 
lations in Indian lands near Pawnee." The underlying reason 
was, none the less, the pro-slavery party's hatred of him.^* 
As for his land speculations, he openly stated to the Howard 
Committee the circumstances connected therewith, and they 
have not been held to reflect on his character.^^ Governor 
Reeder at once became a valuable leader of the Kansas Free 
Soilers, being thus forcibly converted into an Abolitionist from 
a sympathizer with the Squatter Sovereignty policy, and was 
regarded in the East as a martyr to the Abolition cause, 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD loi 

particularly after he was compelled to flee from Kansas in 
disguise, in May, 1856, never to return to that State. As for 
the Legislature, it spent July and August in authorizing a 
militia, appointing a full staff of pro-slavery military and civil 
officers, in establishing a complete code of laws for the gov- 
ernment of the Territory, based on the Missouri code, and 
in passing those extreme Black Laws which John Brown, Jr., 
was so quick to violate. On the last day of its session, the 
Speaker, General J. H. Stringfellow, offered a characteristic 
resolution, which was readily adopted: " It is the duty of the 
Proslavery Party, the Union men of Kansas Territory, to 
know but one issue. Slavery; and that any party making or 
attempting to make any other, is, and should be, held, as an 
ally of abolitionism and disunion."^" For all this, no genuine 
attempt was made to enforce the Black Laws; they were dead 
letters from the time of enactment. If they were intended to 
frighten off further emigration from free States, they failed 
miserably; if they were intended to terrorize those already in 
the Territory, they were an even more dismal failure. On the 
other hand, reprinted in pamphlet form and widely circulated 
throughout the North and East, the Black Laws added fuel 
to the already intense flame of Northern indignation, and 
became an unanswerable demonstration of the intolerance 
of the pro-slavery domination of Kansas and the lengths to 
which it would go. 

The Free State men, especially those in Lawrence, among 
whom Charles Robinson, the agent of the New England Emi- 
gration Society, and Martin F. Conway were beginning to 
stand out as leaders, as soon as they could calmly consider 
the situation, decided that the bogus Legislature and its laws 
must be repudiated. ^^ It soon became their policy to call a 
Constitutional convention, frame a Constitution and then 
apply to Congress for admittance as a free State. As has 
already been pointed out, they were not united among them- 
selves. If there were ardent Abolitionists among them, there 
were also many who were unfriendly to the free negro, even 
when they wished slavery excluded from the Territory. The 
men who had settled Kansas represented every state of politi- 
cal belief, for the magnet of free land was all that had drawn 
many of them there. In the summer of 1855 they might 



102 JOHN BROWN 

roughly have been classed as moderates and radicals; there 
existed, too, considerable jealousy on the part of the other 
emigrants toward those New Englanders who came out under 
the auspices of the Emigrant Aid Societies. ^^ xhe first of six 
conventions to meet in Lawrence on or before August 15, in 
order to repudiate the Legislature, was composed of citizens 
of that settlement. It assembled June 8 and decided to issue 
a call for a State convention, to be made up of five delegates 
from each of the eighteen election districts in Kansas. This 
convention was to have as its purpose the taking "into con- 
sideration the relation the people of this Territory bear to the 
Legislature about to convene at Pawnee." ^^ It was to this 
gathering that John Brown, Jr., came on June 25, to help 
to draft the announcement that the Free State men answered 
"Ready" to the threats of war from Missouri. This conven- 
tion further resolved thAt it was in favor of making Kansas 
a free Territory and in consequence a free State. Finally, 
since the Pawnee Legislature "owed its existence to a com- 
bined system of fraud and force," the members of the conven- 
tion resolved that they were bound by no laws whatsoever 
of its creation.^'* 

Two days later, June 27, James H. Lane made his first 
appearance in Kansas history as chairman of the abortive 
attempt to organize the National Democratic party in the 
Territory, this failure soon bringing Lane into the ranks of 
the Free Soilers. Unlike all the other conventions of this 
period, it in no wise attempted to repudiate the Legislature.^^ 
The next gathering, that of July 11, was attended by the 
expelled Free State members of the Legislature and other citi- 
zens. In it the conflict of opinion between radicals and mod- 
erates was very marked, the repudiation of the Legislature 
and the call for a mass meeting in Lawrence on August 14, 
to consider the government of the Territory, alone being 
unanimous.^^ The August 14 convention, in which Lane par- 
ticipated, turned out to be ready for a fairly radical stand. 
Dr. Charles Robinson was chairman of the committee on 
resolutions, which roundly denounced the bogus Legislature, 
repudiated its authority, and committed the Free State party 
to the forming of a State Constitution of their own with a view 
to admission to the Union, but provided no machinery by 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 103 

which this should be done. If the resolutions were radical, 
the net result was conservative. On the second day there was 
also adopted a call for a convention at Big Springs, to be held 
on September 5. Delegates to it were to be appointed at a 
meeting on August 25, and the purpose of these gatherings 
was to be left largely to what the hour might demand. 

Curiously, as if the specific relationship and purpose of 
these gatherings were not puzzling enough, a second conven- 
tion also met in Lawrence on August 15, while the first was 
still in session. This second body was presided over by Dr. 
A. Hunting, and comprised the radicals of the Free State 
party, some of whom, like Charles Robinson and M. F. Con- 
way, were actually members of both conventions. John 
Brown, Jr., was one of the committee on "business," which 
turned out to be a call for a constitutional gathering at Topeka 
on October 19, for the ''speedy formation of a State consti- 
tution, with an intention of immediate application to be 
admitted as a State into the Union of the United States of 
America." The distinction between these two simultaneous 
conventions of August 15 may be stated thus: The first and 
larger one, of six hundred members, had as its aim the organi- 
zation of the Free State political party by means of the Big 
Springs convention; the second and radical one looked to the 
immediate establishment of a Free State government, to be 
set up in opposition to the pro-slavery Legislature still sitting 
at the Shawnee Mission, and now presided over by the second 
Territorial Governor, Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, — a Governor, 
in truth, to please the most violent Border Ruffian or pro- 
slavery agitator." 

Out of these numerous meetings came the Big Springs 
convention on September 5, which adopted a platform — 
the first one — for the Free State party, and nominated ex- 
Governor Reeder as delegate to Congress. The platform was 
a great disappointment to the radical Abolitionists of the 
John Brown type, both in Kansas and New England, for 
while it resolved that slavery was a curse and that Kansas 
should be free, it announced that it would consent "to any 
fair and reasonable provision in regard to the slaves already 
in the Territory." More than that, it specifically voted that 
Kansas should be a free white State, and recorded itself as 



104 JOHN BROWN 

being in favor of "stringent laws excluding all negroes, bond 
and free, from the Territory." Indeed, as if to answer the 
Southern charge that the Free Soil citizens of Kansas were 
radical, no-union-with-slaveholders, anti-slavery men, the 
convention denounced attempts to interfere with slavery and 
slaves, and declared "that the stale and ridiculous charge of 
Abolitionism so industriously imputed to the Free State party 
... is without a shadow of truth to support it."^^ It is 
hardly surprising that to those men who, like the Browns, had 
come to Kansas to wage war with slavery, this policy of com- 
promise — a last attempt to head off a violent conflict be- 
tween the two forces contending for control of the Territory 
— should have smacked of the cowardly. Nor did the vigorous 
denunciation of the Shawnee Legislature in the resolutions 
passed by the convention mollify men of this type. Charles 
Stearns, the only Lawrence representative of the Liberator 
school of Abolitionists, denounced the proceedings with the 
vigor of language characteristic of that school, and was in turn 
reprobated as an impossible Garrisonian of the deepest dye. 
' ' All sterling anti-slavery men, here and elsewhere, cannot keep 
from spitting upon it [the platform]," wrote Stearns to the 
Kansas Free State of September 24, 1855, "and all pro-slavery 
people must, in their hearts, perfectly despise the base syco- 
phants who originated and adopted it." ^^ In the East, Horace 
Greeley reluctantly accepted the platform in the following 
words: "Why free blacks should be excluded it is difficult to 
understand; but if Slavery can be kept out by a compromise 
of that sort, we shall not complain. An error of this character 
may be corrected; but let Slavery obtain a foothold there 
and it is not so easily removed." ^° 

Doubtless when Lawrence was threatened with destruc- 
tion less than three months later, by the pro-slavery forces 
encamped on the Wakarusa River, Mr. Stearns cited their 
presence as proof that the Big Springs platform had utterly 
failed to mollify the hostile Missourians or to lessen their con- 
tempt for the Free Sollers, whom they still despised as arrant 
cowards. Certain it is that the trend of events speedily 
forced the Free State party itself into an entirely different 
attitude from that it sought to maintain at Big Springs. The 
anti-negro attitude of the party was, however, upheld at the 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 105 

Topeka convention, which met at Topeka on October 23 to 
form a Constitution in obedience to the decision of the earhcr 
delegate convention of September 19 (ordered by the radical 
Lawrence convention of August 15). The Topeka Constitu- 
tional convention of thirty-four members, presided over by 
James H. Lane, consisted of four physicians, twelve lawyers, 
thirteen farmers, two merchants, two clergymen and one 
saddler; a majority favored the exclusion of free negroes, 
but finally decided to submit this question to the people/-*^ 
By 1287 ballots to 453, the voters of the Territory upheld 
the negro exclusion policy on December 15, and made it clear 
to the rest of the country that, if slavery in Kansas itself was 
opposed by the Free Soil party, it was not in the least due to 
any liking for negroes, or, any desire to extend to those who 
were free the opportunities afforded by the opening of the 
Territory, or to any belief that the continuance of human 
bondage was inconsistent with American institutions. Three- 
fourths of the Free State settlers were in favor of a free white 
State, and the heaviest voting against the free negro was in 
Lawrence and Topeka. ^^ Obviously, those who had come to 
Kansas with the purpose of opposing the extension of slavery 
were in a small minority, just as the scanty slave population 
shows either that few of the Missouri settlers came solely for 
slavery's sake, or else that, if they had such a purpose, they 
feared to bring their slaves with them.^^ 

On the credit side of the record of the Big Springs conven- 
tion must be noted its denunciation of the bogus pro-slavery 
Legislature, its demand for the sacredness of the "great 
'American Birthright' — the elective franchise," and its 
endorsement of the coming Topeka convention to consider 
the adoption of a Constitution. There was, moreover, a se- 
rious threat in one of its resolutions that there would be 
submission to the Legislature's laws no longer than the 
Territory's best interests required, when there would follow 
opposition "to a bloody issue as soon as we ascertain that 
peaceable remedies shall fail, and forcible resistance shall fur- 
nish any reasonable measure of success."^* All of this threat- 
ening of fire and slaughter was placed not in the platform, 
but in the resolutions; it was obviously an attempt at facing 
both ways, and as such is justified by men who subsequently 



io6 JOHN BROWN 

became radical antagonists of all who favored slavery.* The 
convention also ignored the Legislature's action in appoint- 
ing October i as the day for the election of a Territorial dele- 
gate to the Thirty-fourth Congress, and fixed upon October 9 
as the proper day for this election ; the returns from this vot- 
ing were subsequently ordered turned over to the "Territorial 
Executive Committee," instead of to the Legislature. This 
"Executive Committee," also a creation of the Big Springs 
Convention, and the first Free State steering committee 
appointed by a delegate convention to take charge of Free 
State affairs, was headed by Charles Robinson as chairman, 
with Joel K. Goodin as secretary, and had among its twenty- 
one other members Martin F. Conway and John Brown, Jr.^^ 
Finally, it was at this Big Springs meeting that James H. 
Lane first made his mark as a Kansas political leader; to his 
eloquence is attributed the saving of the convention from 
a dangerous split, in that he brought about its approval of 
the preliminary Constitutional convention at Topeka.^^ As to 
Lane's attitude on the negro, John Brown, Jr., has testified 
to Lane's saying in Lawrence, about this time: "So far as the 
rights of property are concerned I know no difference between 
the negro and a mule."" Later, however. Lane switched 
about on this as on other issues. 

The two elections for Territorial delegate took place as 
scheduled. At the pro-slavery one on October i , General J . W. 
Whitfield, who had represented Kansas in the national Legis- 
lature during the three months of the Thirty-third Congress 
remaining after his election on November 30, 1854, received 
2721 out of 2738 votes cast, the Free State men abstaining 
from the polls. The Howard Committee pronounced 857 of 
these votes illegal after only a partial examination of the 
returns. ^^ Eight days later, with conditions reversed, Reeder 
received 2849 Free Soil votes. ^^ His election was, of course, 
ignored by the Territorial Governor, Shannon. When Reeder 
and Whitfield both presented themselves at Washington, the 
latter was given his seat on February 4, 1856, only to be igno- 

* For instance, R. G. Elliott, who played an important part in the Big Springs 
Convention, declares that it faced "an important condition that had to be dealt 
with practically and with conciliatory discrimination." — Kansas Historical 
Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 373. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 107 

miniously ousted on August 4,^"" after the report of the How- 
ard Committee had been received by the House of Repre- 
sentatives.* The House could not, however, then bring itself 
to seating Reeder. But his appearance at Washington and 
his vigorous urging of his claims were the reason for the 
appointment of the Howard Committee. This was in itself a 
splendid triumph for the new policy of the Free State leaders 
and their plan of an organized political demand upon Congress 
for recognition. Not only are the majority and minority 
reports of the Howard Committee, with their voluminous 
sworn testimony, an invaluable record for the historian and 
the best source of information as to the period in Kansas 
history covered by its inquiry, but the publication of the 
results thereof made a profound impression upon the country 
at large, at a critical period in the Territory's history. 

From the double election for delegates in October, 1855, 
dates that duality in the political life of the strife-torn Terri- 
tory which lasted for two years thereafter, and adds so much 
to the perplexity of the cursory student of Kansas history 
prior to its statehood. It is not only that there were hence- 
forth two governments, but that they were supported by 
factions bitterly hostile even to the extent of bloodshed. 
There were always separate elections for the same offices at 
separate places, with the double machinery of counting and 
proclaiming the returns, and there was even a duality of man- 
agement on the Free Soil side. The supplemental Topeka 
Constitutional convention met, as determined by the prelim- 
inary one of September 19, on October 23, and remained 
in session until November 11. The Constitution it adopted 
followed closely those of the other free States, providing 
that there should be no slavery, and that no indenture of 
any negro or mulatto made elsewhere should be valid within 
the State. It fixed March 4, 1856, as the day for the meeting 
of the General Assembly called for by the document. 1°' This 
was submitted to the people on December 15 and ratified by 
a vote of 1 73 1 for, to 46 against. The poll-books at Leaven- 
worth having been destroyed by a pro-slavery mob, its vote is 

* The Howard Committee reported that both Whitfield's and Reeder's elec- 
tions were illegal, but that Reeder had received more votes of resident citizens 
than Whitfield. See Howard Report, p. 67. 



io8 JOHN BROWN 

not recorded in the above total. i«2 Thereafter the Free Soil 
forces insisted that Kansas was an organized free State, when 
demanding its admission into the Union. The convention, 
before adjourning, appointed another Free State Executive 
Committee, with the same secretary as had the Robinson 
Committee, Joel K. Goodin, but with Lane, already a serious 
rival of Charles Robinson, as its chairman, and five other 
members. Lane, therefore, emerged from the Topeka con- 
vention with additional prestige and thoroughly committed 
to the Free State policies. 

Out of all the meetings and conventions of the nine months 

after the stolen March 30 election, there had come, then, great 

gains to the Free State movement. The liberty party had 

been organized, leaders had been developed, and a regular 

policy of resistance by legal and constitutional measures 

adopted. If counsels of compromise were still entirely too 

apparent and too potent, the train of events which resulted 

in Kansas's admission as a free State was well under way. 

Not unnaturally, the pro-slavery leaders at first regarded this 

growing opposition with amusement or contempt. They were 

still convinced in October, 1855, that Kansas was theirs by 

right of their larger battalions and by right of conquest. 

Moreover, Governor Shannon, with all his authority, was on 

their side, and behind him the Federal Government. The 

adoption of the Topeka constitution did, however, arouse 

their anger; to this their answer was the organization in 

November of their own party, which, with unconscious irony, 

they dubbed the " Law-and-Order Party," at a meeting over 

which Governor Shannon presided. ^^^ Indeed, as their hitherto 

triumphal overriding of Kansas began to meet a more and 

more compact resistance, their mood began to change. The 

leaders were quick to feel their power slipping from their 

hands, particularly when, the first rush from Missouri being 

over, the steady stream of emigration from the East made it 

evident that they were being outnumbered. Their followers, 

also, began to get out of hand ; from overawing by a show 

of force, it was easy to proceed to actual physical violence 

in the hope of terrifying the hated Free Soiler or of driving 

him from the Territory. The temptation to crime was all 

the greater since there was no non-partisan judicial machin- 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 109 

ery, and often no machinery at all outside of the Federal 
judiciary, i''^ 

The Howard Committee found that, of all the crimes testi- 
fied to during its sessions, an indictment had been found in 
but one case.io^ in that, the man charged with murder was 
a Free Soiler, Cole McCrea by name, who had killed a pro- 
slavery man, Malcolm Clark, at Leavenworth, on April 30, 
1855, in a quarrel over certain trust lands and McCrea's right 
to participate in and vote in a squatter's meeting. The first 
of the long series of homicides which was to make of the Ter- 
ritory in very truth a "bleeding Kansas," was not a political 
one. It occurred near Lawrence on the first election day, 
November 30, 1854, Henry Davis, a Border Ruffian from 
Kentucky, being killed by Lucius Kibbey, of Iowa. Davis, in 
an intoxicated condition, had assailed Kibbey with a knife. ^^^ 
Such an election-day crime might easily have occurred any- 
where. The killing of Clark, lo^ in the following spring, be- 
came, on the other hand, of marked political significance, 
because of the treatment of his slayer, McCrea. The latter 
was imprisoned at Leavenworth until late in November. The 
injustice of his case lay in the court's denying to McCrea his 
counsel, James H. Lane, because the latter would not take 
the oath of allegiance to the pro-slavery Legislature, and in 
McCrea's subsequent treatment, on September 17, when he 
was brought before the grand jury of nineteen men sum- 
moned by Chief Justice Lecompte and picked by him. Sixteen 
were openly selected and three in private; one of the nineteen 
had been engaged with Clark in the attack on McCrea. For 
a whole week Justice Lecompte endeavored to induce the jury 
to indict McCrea, but in vain; the evidence was too strongly 
in favor of McCrea for even this picked jury to find a true 
bill against him. As the foreman refused to bring in a verdict 
of "not found," Justice Lecompte adjourned the court until 
the second Monday of November, when McCrea was finally 
indicted, after having been illegally deprived of liberty during 
the intervening period. When, in November, he was able to 
make his escape from jail and leave the Territory by way of 
Lawrence, the inability of its citizens to offer him protection 
added greatly to their stress of mind. The whole episode of 
McCrea's confinement had roused the indignation of the Free 



no JOHN BROWN 

Soilers everywhere, convinced as they were that McCrea 
had shot in self-defence, i"* 

Even more stirring to the friends of Hberty was the ill- 
treatment of William Phillips, an active Free State lawyer 
of Leavenworth, and a friend of Cole McCrea's, who was 
present when Clark was killed. Phillips received notice on 
April 30, from the pro-slavery vigilance committee appointed 
on that date, to leave the Territory. On his refusal to go or 
to sign a written agreement that he would leave Kansas, a 
majority of the committee, so one of its members testified, 
"voted to tar and feather him. The committee could get no 
tar and feathers this side of Rialto ; and we took him up there 
and feathered him a little above Rialto, Missouri." ^^^ This 
witness forgot to add that one side of Phillips's head was 
shaved ; that after his clothes were stripped from him and the 
tar applied, he was ridden on a rail for a mile and a half, and 
then sold for one dollar by a negro auctioneer at the behest 
of his tormentors. A public meeting at Leavenworth on May 
19 heartily endorsed this treatment of "William Phillips, the 
moral perjurer." ^^^ The next day the Leavenworth Herald 
said of the mob's work: "The joy, exultation and glorification 
produced by it in our community are unparalleled." This out- 
rage failed to daunt Phillips's courage; he stayed in Kansas, 
only to die later at the hands of his pro-slavery enemies. As 
John Brown was leaving Ohio for Kansas, a similar experience 
befell the Rev. Pardee Butler at Atchison. His pro-slavery 
fellow citizens, on August 16, placed him on a raft and shipped 
him down the Missouri, throwing stones at him and his 
queer craft as the current bore him away. His forehead 
was ornamented with the letter R; and the flags on his raft 
bore the inscriptions, "Greeley to the rescue, I have a nigger; " 
"Eastern Aid Express;" and "'Rev. Mr. Butler,' agent to 
the Underground Railroad." ^^^ The Squatter Sovereign, the 
Stringfellow newspaper, notified all the world that "the same 
punishment we will award to all free-soilers, abolitionists and 
their emissaries." In fact, one J. W. B. Kelly had already 
encountered the hatred of the pro-slavery leaders, for in the 
first week of August he was severely thrashed and ordered 
out of town for holding Abolition views. ^^^ Yet Butler re- 
turned to Atchison, as Phillips did to Leavenworth, only to 



IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD iii 

meet a graver fate. Another clergyman, the Rev. WilHam C. 
Clark, was assaulted on a Missouri river steamer in Septem- 
ber, for avowing Free State beliefs that seemed to his assail- 
ants to call for physical punishment. ^^^ 

As John Brown crossed the boundary between Missouri 
and Kansas, on October 4, these outrages were still agitating 
the Territory and causing men everywhere to arm. That the 
pro-slavery election of October i had passed off peacefully, 
although fraudulently, had reassured no one; within five days 
the Free Soilers were to hold their own election and thus 
begin a Free Kansas governmental structure. W^ould their 
lawless Border Ruffian neighbors permit this without addi- 
tional bloodshed and violence? Many a Free Soil settler who 
had found his way into Kansas only in the face of outspoken 
Missouri hostility, enduring privation if not starvation on the 
way, because of his being a Yankee,* envied the little Brown 
colony their rich supply of arms and ammunition. Upon 
John Brown, the apostle of the sword of Gideon, and his mili- 
tant sons, outspoken in their defiance of slavery and its laws, 
each separate crime by a Missourian made a deep and last- 
ing impression. Without loss of time their settlement was to 
become known on both sides of the border as a centre of 
violent resistance to all who wished to see human slavery 
introduced into the Territory. Indeed, three days after his 
arrival at his destination, October 9, he and his sons went to 
the election for a Free State delegate "most thoroughly armed 
(except Jason, who was too feeble) but no enemy appeared," 
so John Brown wrote his wife on October 14, adding, "nor 
have I heard of any disturbance in any part of the Terri- 
tory." 11^ The spirit of the Massachusetts minute-men was 
alive in Kansas. 

* For instance, Samuel Walker, later a leading citizen of Lawrence, was not 
allowed, in April 1855, to take his little girl, who was suffering from a broken 
leg, into the house of a Baptist minister living on the Missouri border, because 
he came from the North. Not until he reached the Shawnee nation could he, a 
Yankee, get shelter at night for his injured child; food was obtained only at night 
and from slaves. — Kansas Historical Collections, vol. 6, p. 253. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 

Fortunately, the Brown minute-men were not called upon 
for active service for a few weeks after the arrival of their 
arms, so that home-building could progress with some rapid- 
ity, if one can really give the name of home to a shed open in 
front, its roof of poles covered by long shingles, and its three 
sides formed of bundles of long prairie grass pressed close 
between upright stakes. Such a shanty sheltered John Brown, 
Jr., his wife and some of the others, until late in February, 
1856; while Jason's mansion during that period consisted only 
of log walls and a roof of cotton sheeting. It had some advan- 
tages, however, for Mrs. Jason Brown wrote, on November 
25, 1855, that " the little house we live in now has no floor in 
it, but has quite a good chimney in so that I can cook a meal 
without smoking my eyes almost out of my head." ^ The per- 
manent house-building was rendered slow and difficult by the 
enfeeblement of two of the new arrivals, for Henry Thomp- 
son and Oliver Brown succumbed to the prevailing ague in 
November, and had not recovered by the end of the month. 2 
Nor had Jason when, late in November, there came the first 
real call to arms of the Brown settlement, to which its poverty- 
stricken owners had given at various times three names. 
Brown's Station, Brownsville and Fairfield. Not one of them 
has survived, and the last, from the beginning a misnomer, 
was particularly so in November, 1855, not only because of 
the exceptionally cold and bleak Kansas winter, but also 
because of the reports of new and alarming crimes of which 
Free State men were the victims. 

The killings began in earnest on October 25, at Doniphan, 
a town near Atchison, when Samuel Collins, owner of a saw- 
mill at Doniphan, was shot by a pro-slavery man, Patrick 
Laughlin by name, for political reasons. Laughlin, having 
betrayed a secret Free Soil society known as the "Kansas 
Legion," of which he had for a time been a member, was de- 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 113 

nounced by Collins for his action. Like Montagues and Capu- 
lets, they met armed the next morning, with friends or rela- 
tions about them. When the fight was over, Collins lay dead; 
Laughlin, seriously wounded, recovered and lived on in Atchi- 
son, no effort being made to indict or punish him.^ If there 
was possibly room for doubt as to whether Collins or Laugh- 
lin assumed the offensive, there was none whatever in the 
case of Charles Dow, a young Free State man from Ohio, who 
was shot from behind and cruelly murdered near Hickory 
Point, Douglas County, by Franklin N. Coleman, of Virginia, 
a pro-slavery settler. This killing was due to a quarrel over 
Coleman's cutting timber on Dow's claim, and was, therefore, 
in its origin non-political. Yet out of it, too, came alarming 
political consequences. After attending a Free Soil settlers' 
meeting, called November 26 to protest against the crime 
and to bring the murderer to justice, Jacob Branson, the Free 
State man with whom Dow had been living, was arrested 
that same night by the pro-slavery sheriff, Samuel J. Jones, 
who resided at Westport, Missouri. Jones was postmaster of 
Westport while also sheriff of Douglas County, Kansas, and 
as will be seen, the gravest menace to the peace of the little 
Lawrence community. The pro-slavery warrants upon which 
Jones arrested Branson charged him with making threats and 
with breaches of the peace. As Sheriff Jones and his posse, 
which had then shrunk to fifteen men, neared Blanton's 
Bridge with their prisoner, after having spent two hours 
carousing at a house on the road, a party of fifteen Free State 
men headed by Samuel N. Wood, of Lawrence, stopped them 
with levelled guns. In the parley which followed, Branson 
went over to his rescuers, who absolutely refused to recognize 
the authority of Sheriff Jones, and told him that the only Jones 
they knew was the postmaster at Westport. The rescuing 
party reached Lawrence with Branson before dawn ; " there 
it was at once recognized that the rescue would give the pro- 
slavery men precisely the excuse they needed for an attack 
upon the town. To an excited meeting of citizens held that 
evening, Branson related his story. His auditors were, how- 
ever, calm enough to decline all responsibility for the affair 
in the name of Lawrence. Realizing that this action would 
probably avail them but little, a Committee of Safety was 



114 JOHN BROWN 

organized to form the citizens into guards and to put the town 
into a position of defence.^ 

Meanwhile, Sheriff Jones, after first despatching a messen- 
ger to his own State, Missouri, for aid, appealed on advice 
of others to the Governor of Kansas, who might naturally be 
expected to have a greater interest in the affair than any one 
in Missouri.^ Governor Shannon's interest was soon suffi- 
ciently aroused for him to issue to the murderer, three days 
after the crime, a commission as justice of the peace. ^ Being 
also of a confiding nature, he was thus doubly prepared to 
believe the exaggerated statements made to him by Sheriff 
Jones, who declared that he must have no less than three thou- 
sand men forthwith in order to carry out the laws,^ as the Gov- 
ernor might consider an "open rebellion" as having already 
commenced, — this as a result of the rescue of a single prisoner, 
in which not a shot was fired. But the Free State men having 
destroyed three cabins, those of Coleman and two settlers 
named Hargus and Buckley, and thereby frightened some 
pro-slavery families into returning to Missouri, Jones was 
easily able to make Governor Shannon think that an armed 
band had burnt a number of homes, destroyed personal 
property, and turned whole families out of doors.^ The Gov- 
ernor at once ordered Major-General William P. Richardson 
and Adjutant-General H. J. Strickler, of the newly organized 
pro-slavery militia, to repair to Lecompton with as large forces 
as they could raise, and report to Sheriff Jones to aid him 
in the execution of any legal process in his hands. ^^ This was 
the beginning of the so-called "Wakarusa War," 

Thus the Branson rescue gave the extreme pro-slavery men 
the opportunity they had been looking for to mass their forces 
against Lawrence. But it is also probably true that, as Sheriff 
Jones declared later in an affidavit, he would have met with 
violence had he attempted to serve any warrant in that town 
where the citizens, armed with the much dreaded Sharp's 
rifles, were daily drilling, and were outspoken in their refusal 
to obey any of the laws enacted by the Pawnee Legislature. 
Governor Shannon, being sworn to enforce the laws of the Ter- 
ritory, had no other course open to him than to give aid to 
Jones. But his pro-slavery feelings led him to swallow every 
statement made to him by Jones. In the number of men he 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 115 

called together, his willingness to have Missourians figure as 
Kansas militia, and his readiness to assume that there was 
a serious "rebellion" in Lawrence despite the assertions of 
its citizens, he again showed his bias. Moreover, he cannot 
altogether escape the charge of duplicity, for, while he never 
modified his orders of November 27 to his generals, he wrote 
to President Pierce the next day that the sherifiF had called 
on him for more troops than were really needed, that "five to 
eight hundred men" would be enough. If his excuse for this 
inconsistency is his belief that his generals could not raise 
more than five or six hundred men, instead of the three thou- 
sand Jones asked for, he certainly did not make it plain to 
the citizens of Kansas that he wanted the smaller number. 
Again, while he subsequently testified that he had never 
dreamed that any one would go to Missouri for men to rein- 
force Jones, he made not the slightest effort to reprove any one 
for having done so, or to send back those citizens of Missouri 
who were there in the belief that he had summoned them. 
True, he wrote to Pierce that the reinforcing of Jones by 
sufificient citizens of the Territory to enable him to execute 
his processes "is the great object to be accomplished, to avoid 
the dreadful evils of civil war." ^^ But he lifted no finger to 
prevent when there swarmed into Kansas the same men who 
had already invaded Kansas three times in order to stuff or 
steal the ballot-boxes, and were now only too happy to encamp 
near Lawrence with guns in their hands under the sanction 
of the government. His subsequent defence that after the 
arrival of the Missourians he deemed it best "to mitigate an 
evil which it was impossible to suppress, by bringing under 
military control these irregular and excited forces," ^^ reads 
oddly enough. He did beg help of Pierce, and did try his best 
to call out the United States troops under Colonel E. V. Sum- 
ner at Fort Leavenworth, to aid him in preventing an attack 
on the citizens of Lawrence, who he had at the same time de- 
clared could best be subdued by citizens of Kansas reinforcing 
Sheriff Jones! In other words, he now asked Colonel Sumner 
to protect Lawrence from Jones and his men. But Sumner 
refused. 

Altogether, Governor Shannon claimed, two hundred and 
fifty Kansas militia rendezvoused near Franklin on the Waka- 



ii6 JOHN BROWN 

rusa, a small tributary of the Kansas River, south of Lawrence. 
But this statement rests on his assertion alone; most students 
of this period agree that not many more than fifty Kansans 
joined Major-General Richardson and Adjutant-General 
Strickler.i^ Of the Missourians, the first company to appear 
at Franklin and go into camp as Kansas militia was one of 
fifty men from Westport, Missouri. At Liberty and Lexing- 
ton, Missouri, two hundred men with three pieces of artillery 
and one thousand stand of arms were quickly brought to- 
gether and sent into Kansas. ^^ Brigadier-General Lucien J. 
Eastin, commander of the Second Brigade of Kansas Militia, 
was also editor of the Leavenworth Herald, and with the aid 
of his presses not only ordered his own "brigade" to assem- 
ble at Leavenworth on December i, but circulated the follow- 
ing appeal throughout the Missouri border counties: 

TO ARMS! TO ARMS! ! 

It is expected that every lover of Law and Order will rally at 
Leavenworth, on Saturday Dec. i, 1855, prepared to march at once to 
the scene of the rebellion, to put down the outlaws of Douglas County, 
who are committing depredations upon persons and property, burn- 
ing down houses and declaring open hostility to the laws, and have 
forcibly rescued a prisoner from the Sheriff. Come one, come all! 
The laws must be executed. The outlaws, it is said, are armed to 
the teeth and number 1000 men. Every man should bring his rifle 
and ammunition and it would be well to bring two or three days' 
provisions. Every man to his post, and do his duty.^^ 

Many Citizens. 

A letter purporting to come from Daniel Woodson, the Sec- 
retary of the Territory, urging Eastin to call out the Platte 
County, Missouri, Rifle Company, "as our neighbors are 
always ready to help us," and adding "do not implicate the 
Governor whatever you do," was subsequently denounced 
to the Howard Committee as a forgery by Mr. Woodson 
when under oath.^" It did much, however, to infuriate the 
Kansans, and was effectively used in the East as proof of 
Shannon's and Woodson's betrayal of Kansas. The highest 
estimate of those who assembled to besiege Lawrence is one 
by Sheriff Jones of eighteen hundred ; it is generally believed 
that twelve hundred is the more accurate figure. ^^ Atchison 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 117 

was, of course, conspicuous in urging on the invasion. Speak- 
ing at Platte City on December i, in his usual bombastic 
style, he said: ^^ 

"Fellow Citizens: We have done our duty. We have done nothing 
but our duty. Not you — not me — but those that have gone into 
Kansas to aid Governor Shannon to sustain the law and put down 
rebellion and insurrection. 250 men are now on the march and 
probably 500 more will go from the County of Platte. Why are you 
not with them — you and you? I wish that I was with them at 
their head. . . ." 

In St. Louis, on the other hand, the Intelligencer, on Decem- 
ber I, took a very different view of Missouri's duty from that 
of Atchison : 

"... The people of Missouri are not the ones to be called on to 
back up the miserable political puppets that Frank Pierce shall 
send out from the Eastern States to play the fool and introduce 
bloodshed and anarchy in Kansas. Now, let Pierce reap the fruits 
of his imbecility. Let not the people of Missouri, by any urgent 
appeal or cunning device, be drawn into the internal feuds of Kan- 
sas. It looks very much as if there were a preconcerted effort to 
do this very thing. ... It does seem to us that one of the devil's 
own choicest humbugs is exploding in the call on Missouri for 
'help.'" 

Naturally, this hastily gathered together "army" lacked 
cohesion and discipline; according to anti-slavery descriptions, 
its members were far gone in drink and supported themselves 
by pillaging the neighborhood. Andreas, the most reliable of 
Kansas historians, states that they were in the "delirium 
coming from exposure, lack of food, and plentiful supplies of 
strong drink," and this is the tenor of all contemporary Free 
Soil accounts. 1^ In the Lexington, Mo., Express of December 
7, on the other hand, two citizens of that town reported, after 
having visited the pro-slavery forces, that all the men were 
"comfortably fixed, with plenty of provisions and all were in 
high spirits and anxious for a fray. . . . The arrangements 
were good, and the most perfect order and decorum were 
preserved at all times. The sale of liquor was prohibited." 
Some of the weapons of this "noble and gallant set of fellows" 
were proved before the Howard Committee to have been 
stolen from the United States Arsenal at Liberty, Mo., which 



Ii8 JOHN BROWN 

arms the Border Ruffians, with surprising carelessness, failed 
to return when the Wakarusa "war" was over.^o 

The citizens of Lawrence, on hearing of the coming of the 
Missourians, were content neither with sending away Branson 
and his rescuers, nor with organizing their citizens as guards, 
nor with fortifying the town and smuggHng a howitzer from the 
North through the enemy's Hnes. A general call was sent out 
in all directions to Free State men in Kansas to come to the 
rescue of Lawrence. ^^ The settlers rallied in response, arriving 
alone and in squads, on foot, on horseback and in wagons, regu- 
larly armed companies coming from Bloomington, Palmyra, 
Ottawa Creek and Topeka. Naturally, it was the opportunity 
for which the Brown minute-men had been longing. It was 
not until December 6, however, that authentic news reached 
them of what was going on, and that their aid was asked. 
John Brown, Jr., was on the way to Lawrence on horseback 
to ascertain the facts, when the runner who was summoning 
the countryside met him. What happened then, John Brown 
himself described to his wife and children at North Elba in 
a long letter dated December i6, 1855: 

"On getting this last news it was at once agreed to break up at 
Johns Camp & take Wealthy, & Jonny to Jason's camp (some Two 
Miles off); & that all the men but Henry, Jason & Oliver should 
at once set off for Lawrence under Arms; those Three being wholly 
unfit for duty. We then set about providing a little Corn-Bread; 
& Meat, Blankets, Cooking utensils, running Bullets & loading all 
our Guns, Pistols etc. The Five set off in the Afternoon, & after 
a short rest in the Night (which was quite dark), continued our 
march untill after daylight next Morning when we got our Break- 
fast, started again; & reached Lawrence in the Forenoon, all of us 
more or less lamed by our tramp. On reaching the place we found 
that negotiations had commenced between Gov. Shannon (haveing 
a force of some Fifteen or Sixteen Hundred men) & the principal 
leaders of the Free-State men ; they having a force of some Five 
Hundred men at that time. These were busy Night & day fortify- 
ing the Town with Embankments; & circular Earthworks up to the 
time of the Treaty with the Gov, as an attack was constantly looked 
for; notwithstanding the negotiations then pending. This state of 
things continued from Friday until Sunday Evening. On the Even- 
ing we left a company of the invaders of from Fifteen to Twenty- 
five attacked some Three or Four Free-State men, mostly unarmed, 
killing a Mr. Barber from Ohio wholly unarmed. His boddy was 
afterward brought in; & lay for some days in the room afterward 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 119 

occupied by a part of the company to wh we belong; (it being 
organized after we reached Lawrence.) The building was a large 
unfinished Stone Hotel; in which a great part of the Volunteers 
were quartered; & who witnessed the scene of bringing in the Wife 
& other friends of the murdered man. I will only say of this scene 
that it was Heart-rending; & calculated to exasperate the men ex- 
ceedmgly; & one of the sure results of Civil War. After frequently 
calling on the leaders of the Free-State men to come & have an 
mterview with him, by Gov. Shannon; & after as often getting for 
an answer that if he had any business to transact with anyone in 
Lawrence, to come & attend to it; he signified his wish to come into 
the Town; & an escort was sent to the Invaders' Camp to conduct 
him in. When there the leading Free-State men finding out his 
weakness, frailty & consciousness of the awkward circumstances 
mto which he had really got himself; took advantage of his Coward- 
ice, & Folly; & by means of that & the free use of Whiskey; & some 
Trickery; succeeded in getting a written arangement with him 
much to their own liking. He stipulated with them to order the pro- 
slavery men of Kansas home; & to proclaim to the Missouri invaders 
that they must quit the Territory without delay ; and also to give up 
Gen. Pomeroy a prisoner in their camp; which was all done; he also 
recognizing the Volunteers as the Militia of Kansas, & empowering 
their Officers to call them out whenever in their discretion the safety 
of Lawrence or other portions of the territory might require it to be 
done. He Gov. Shannon gave up all pretension of further attemp 
to enforce the enactments of the Bogus Legislature, & retired sub- 
ject to the derision & scoffs of the Free-State men (into whose hands 
he had committed the welfare & protection of Kansas) ; & to the 
pity of some; & the curses of others of the invading force. So ended 
this last Kansas invasion the Missourians returning with flying 
Colors, aher incuring heavy expences; suffering great exposure, 
hardships, & privations, not having fought any Battles, Burned 
or destroyed any infant towns or Abolition Presses; leaving the 
Free-State men organized & armed, & in full possession of the Ter- 
ritory; not having fulfilled any of all their dreadful threatenings, 
except to murder One unarmed man; & to commit some Roberies 
& waste of propperty upon defenceless families, unfortunately in 
their power. We learn by their papers they boast of a great vic- 
tory over the Abolitionists; & well they may. Free-State men 
have only hereafter to retain the footing they have gained; and 
Kansas is free. Yesterday the people passed uppon the Free-State 
constitution. The result, though not yet known, no one doubts. One 
little circumstance connected with our own number showing a little 
of the true character of those invaders: On our way about Three 
Miles from Lawrence we had to pass a bridge (with our Arms & 
Amunition) of which the invaders held posses^sion; but as the Five 
had each a Gun, with Two large Revolvers in a Belt (exposed to 
view) with a Third in his Pocket ; & as we moved directly on to the 



120 JOHN BROWN 

Bridge without making any halt, they for some reason suffered 
us to pass without interruption ; notwithstanding there were some 
Fifteen to Twenty-five (as variously reported) stationed in a Log- 
House at one end of the Bridge. We could not count them. A Boy 
on our approach ran & gave them notice. Five others of our Com- 
pany, well armed; who followed us some Miles behind, met with 
equally civil treatment the same day. After we left to go to Law- 
rence until we returned when disbanded; I did not see the least sign 
of cowardice or want of self-possession exhibited by any volunteer 
of the Eleven companies who constituted the Free-State force & I 
never expect again to see an equal number of such well-behaved, 
cool, determined men; fully as I believe sustaining the high char- 
acter of the Revolutionary Fathers; but enough of this as we intend 
to send you a paper giving a more full account of the affair. We 
have cause for gratitude in that we all returned safe, & well, with 
the exception of hard Colds; and found those left behind rather 

) ) 22 

improvmg. 

It would be hard to add anything to this admirable summary 
of the close of the Wakarusa " war." That it was temperate 
and did not overemphasize the part played by the Missouri- 
ans appears from the opinion of John Sherman and William 
A. Howard, of the Howard Committee, who affirmed that: 

"Among the many acts of lawless violence which it has been the 
duty of your Committee to investigate, this invasion of Lawrence is 
the most defenceless. A comparison of the facts proven with the 
official statements of the offtcers of the government will show how 
groundless were the pretexts which gave rise to it. A community in 
which no crime had been committed by any of its members, against 
none of whom had a warrant been issued or a complaint made, who 
had resisted no process in the hands of a real or pretended ofificer, 
was threatened with destruction in the name of ' law and order, ' 
and that, too, by men who marched from a neighboring State with 
arms obtained by force and who at every stage of their progress vio- 
lated many laws, and among others the Constitution of the United 
States. 

"The chief guilt must rest on Samuel J. Jones. His character is 
illustrated by his language at Lecompton, when peace was made. 
He said Major Clark and Burns both claimed the credit of killing 
that damned abolitionist, (Barber) and he did n't know which ought 
to have it. If Shannon hadn't been a damned old fool, peace would 
never have been declared. He would have wiped Lawrence out. 
He had men and means enough to do it."^^ 

John Brown's company comprised others than himself and 
his four sons, Frederick, Owen, Salmon and John, Jr., and was 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 121 

well named the "Liberty Guards." He himself received here 
for the first time the historic title of Captain, and the original 
muster roll of his company, still preserved, gives the facts as 
to its composition and service:-* 

"Muster Roll of Capt. John Brown's Company in the Fifth Regi- 
ment, First Brigade of Kansas Volunteers, commanded by Col. 
Geo. W. Smith, called into the service of the people of Kansas to 
defend the City of Lawrence, in the Territory of Kansas from 
threatened demolition by foreign invaders. Enrolled at Osawatomie 
K. T. Called into the service from the 27th day of November, A. D. 
1855, when mustered, to the 12th dayof December, when discharged. 
Service, 16 days. Miles travelled each way, 50. Allowance to each 
for use of horse $24. 

"Remark — One keg of powder and eight pounds of lead were 
furnished by William Partridge and were used in the service." 

Age 
John Brown sen. Capt. 55 

Wm. W. Up De Graff ist Lieut. 34 

Henry H. Williams 2nd " 27 

Jas. J. Holbrook 3rd " 23 

Ephraim Reynolds 1st Sergt. 25 

R. W. Wood 2nd " 20 

Frederic Brown 3rd " 25 

John Yelton 4th " 26 

Henry Alderman 1st Corp 55 

H. Harrison Up De Graff 2nd Corp 23 

Dan'l W. Collis 3rd Corp 27 

Wm. Partridge 4th " 32 

Amos D Alderman ^ 20 

Owen Brown 31 

Salmon Brown 19 

John Brown, jr. 34 

Francis Brennen 29 

Wm. W. Coine 19 

Benj. L. Cochren 24 

Jeremiah Harrison 22 

This muster roll was certified to as correct "on honor" by 
George W. Smith, Colonel commanding the Fifth Regiment 
Kansas Volunteers, but it will be noted that it gives the Lib- 
erty Guards credit for at least nine days more service than 
they were entitled to according to John Brown's own story. 
So does the honorable discharge of John Brown, Jr., which 
was countersigned not only by Colonel Smith, but also by 
J. H. Lane as General, First Brigade, Kansas Volunteers, and 



122 JOHN BROWN 

"C. Robinson, Maj. Gen'I.," in that it dates his service from 
November 27, This apparently was the date of entry into 
service fixed for all the volunteers of this quaint "army," 
with its elaborate organization and high titles." As a matter 
of fact, the active service of the Liberty Guards comprised 
only Friday the 7th and Saturday the 8th of December, dur- 
ing which time the peace negotiations were under way. They 
remained in Lawrence until the 12th or later, when the other 
companies also left for their homes. 

In his narrative of what happened during his brief partici- 
pation in the siege of Lawrence, Brown slurs over his own 
part in the proceedings, which was sufficiently conspicuous 
to make him well known to all who were in the threatened 
town. "I did not see Brown's entry into Lawrence," writes 
R. G. Elliott, at the time an editor of the Ka?tsas Free State, 
"which was the first introduction of the mysterious stranger 
into the Kansas drama, but I do know that his grim visage, 
his bold announcements, with the patriarchal organization 
of his company, gave him at once welcome entrance into the 
military counsels of the defenders, and lightened up the gloom 
of the besieged in their darkest hour." ^6 Here in Kansas, too, 
John Brown made upon every one the impression of age, 
owing to the stoop of his shoulders, the measured step, the 
earnestness and impressiveness of his manner, and other 
signs of seniority and natural leadership, even though there 
was in his endurance, the resoluteness of his movements, and 
the promptness of his speech, nothing approaching senility.* 
The title of captain fitted him readily; where he was, he led. 
And so at Lawrence, — hardly arrived, he was at the fortifi- 
cations. "There," reports an eye-witness, James F. Legate, he 
"walked quietly from fort to fort and talked to the men sta- 
tioned there, saying to each that it was nothing to die if their 
lives had served some good purpose, and that no purpose could 
be higher or better than that which called us to surrender 
life, if need be, to repel such an invasion." " Even though 
the discussion of peace was on, he suggested the gathering of 
pitchforks for use in repelling a possible charge. ^^ The peace 
itself produced in him only anger, when first he heard of it. 

* The Lawrence Herald oj Freedom reported the arrival on December 7 of 
"Mr. John Brown, an aged gentleman from Essex County, N. Y." 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 123 

It was not only, as he wrote to Orson Day on reaching home, 
that there was "a good deal of trickery on the one side and 
of cowardice, folly, & drunkenness on the other;" ^^ there was 
suppression of facts as well. For the actual terms of peace, 
involving as they did a compromise, were at first concealed 
by the leaders in expectation of dissatisfaction. As a matter 
of fact, the agreement pledged the Free State men to "aid in 
the execution of the laws when called upon by proper author- 
ity;" its equivocal concluding sentence read: "We wish it 
understood, that we do not herein express any opinion as to 
the validity of the enactments of the Territorial Legislature." 
This was signed on December 8. 

An open-air meeting was held on Saturday afternoon about 
the still unfinished Free State Hotel, where a box outside the 
door served as a platform and door-sill, there being no steps 
but planks leading to the ground. Shannon, Robinson and 
Lane, fresh from signing the treaty, harangued the crowd. 
What the terms of the treaty were, they would tell no one 
that day. Shannon expressed his satisfaction at the discovery 
that he had misunderstood the people of Lawrence, that they 
were really estimable and orderly persons. He hoped now to 
preserve order and get out of the Territory the Missourians, 
who, he remarked, were there of their own accord. Lane's 
eloquence evoked cheers; he declared that "any man who 
would desert Lawrence until the invaders below had left the 
Territory, was a coward." Governor Robinson was pacific, dis- 
creet and brief. He stated, according to William Phillips, the 
Tribune's correspondent, that "they had taken an honorable 
position." ^° But the crowd was not so sure of that. A rumor 
had been circulating that the treaty was in reality a complete 
surrender on the part of Robinson and Lane, and an accept- 
ance of the hated pro-slavery laws. John Brown, boiling over 
with anger, mounted the shaky platform and addressed the 
audience when Robinson had finished. He declared that 
Lawrence had been betrayed, and told his hearers that they 
should make a night attack upon the pro-slavery forces and 
drive them out of the Territory. "I am an Abolitionist," he 
said, "dyed in the wool," and then he offered to be one of ten 
men to make a night attack upon the Border Ruffian camp. 
Armed and with lanterns, his plan was to string his men along 



124 JOHN BROWN 

the camp far apart. At a given signal in the early morning 
hours, they were to shout and fire on the slumbering enemy. 
"And I do believe," declared John Brown in telling of it, 
"that the whole lot would have run." ^^ Lane, too, had been 
secretly in favor of an attack, but peace councils prevailed. ^^ 
John Brown was pulled down by friends and foes from the 
improvised rostrum, and, according to one responsible witness, 
it was Robinson who stamped out the incipient mutiny by 
calmly assuring the crowd that the unpublished treaty was a 
triumph of diplomacy. ^^ 

That same evening, Shannon, Lane and Robinson spoke to 
thirteen pro-slavery captains at Franklin, who grumblingly 
accepted the treaty and gave their word that they would 
endeavor to induce the Missourians to return quietly to their 
homes. ^* But the Missouri leaders were not all pleased at 
the outcome. General Stringfellow declared, in a speech in the 
camp near Lecompton, that "Shannon has played us false; 
the Yankees have tricked us." Sheriff Jones's regret that 
Shannon did not wipe out Lawrence has already been recorded. 
Atchison was for peace, — there are doubts if he really was 
a fighting man when it came to the point. "If you attack 
Lawrence now," he declared, "you attack it as a mob, and 
what would be the result? You would cause the election 
of an Abolition President and the ruin of the Democratic, 
party." ^^ If there was some grumbling among the rank and 
file at Shannon's ordering them to return to their homes, the 
cold storm of that Saturday night helped on the dissolution 
of the pro-slavery forces. Many left on Monday morning, 
worn, sleepless and frozen. Moreover, the whiskey had given 
out, and this, with the fear of a possible Free State attack, 
sent more and more home, until on Tuesday only a few par- 
ties remained. Finally, these few gave in to the inevitable and 
departed, says Phillips, "cursing Shannon and the 'cunning 
Abolitionists.'" 3« 

As for Shannon, the tricky Robinson had again taken ad- 
vantage of his weakness by inviting him and Sheriff Jones 
to a peace gathering in the Free State Hotel on Sunday even- 
ing, December 9, despite protests from Lane and others that 
no such enemy of Lawrence as Jones should be given the 
right hand of fellowship. In the course of the evening, when 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 125 

the Governor was thoroughly enjoying himself, Robinson 
rushed up to him and informed him that the Missourians 
had' left the Wakarusa and were marching on Lawrence. He 
insisted that the Governor should at once sign a paper author- 
izing him and Lane to defend the town. The Governor, after 
a little urging, put his name to the following document: 

To C. Robinson and J. H. Lane, commanders of the Enrolled 
Citizens of Lawrence: 

You are hereby authorized and directed to take such measures 
and use the enrolled forces under your command in such manner, 
for the preservation of the peace and the protection of the persons 
and property of the people of Lawrence and its vicinity, as in your 
judgment shall best secure that end. 

Wilson Shannon. 
Lawrence, Dec. 9, 1855. 

His Excellency thereupon returned to the delights of the 
reception and, says Phillips, "on that eventful Sunday, if 
Governors ever get drunk, his supreme highness, Wilson the 
First, got superlatively tipsy." " 

When he came to his senses and discovered that he had 
given legal authority to arm and fight to the leaders of that 
very mob to suppress which he had called out the Territorial 
militia, he was properly chagrined. The force which he had 
denounced for assembling to upset the laws was now duly 
empowered by him to act at its own discretion without limit 
of time. Naturally, the Governor was indignant. In a long 
letter to the Kansas correspondent of the New York Herald, 
dated December 25, 1855, he sought to justify himself and 
explain his predicament, saying :^^ 

". . .amid an excited throng, in a small and crowded apartment, 
and without any critical examination of the paper which Dr. Rob- 
inson had just written, I signed it; but it was distinctly understood 
that it had no application to anything but the threatened attack 
on Lawrence that night. . . . It did not for a moment occur to me 
that this pretended attack upon the town was but a device to obtain 
from me a paper which might be used to my prejudice. I supposed 
at the time that I was surrounded by gentlemen and by grateful 
hearts, and not by tricksters, who, with fraudulent representations, 
were seeking to obtain an advantage over me. I was the last man 
on the globe who deserved such treatment from the citizens of 
Lawrence." 



126 JOHN BROWN 

It is evident that the Governor had reason for his anger. 
Dr. Robinson's successful stratagem can best be justified by 
that familiar theory that everything is permissible in war. 
This has excused many a more heinous crime; but Shannon 
could properly have urged that, as peace had been signed, this 
trick was indefensible even as a war measure. 

The treaty was, from the beginning, an ill-fated document, 
and met the destiny double-dealing compromises deserve. 
As events turned out, the Missourians had their revenge on 
Lawrence and Robinson within seven months. Though he 
afterwards became a respected citizen of Lawrence, Shannon 
was, until his removal in 1856, despised by its residents and 
berated by the pro-slavery men in and out of the Territory, 
who sought to saddle upon him the blame for their undeniable 
defeat. "The discomfited and lop-eared invaders," wrote 
Horace Greeley in the Tribune of December 25, in character- 
istic style, "pretend that against their wish they were kept 
from fighting by the pusillanimity of Gov. Shannon." Thus 
ended the Wakarusa "war." It had cost but one life, that of 
Barber, the unexpected sight of whose dead body in the Free 
State Hotel had done much to make Shannon see some justice 
in the Free Soil cause. Barber had been shot from behind, 
probably by the United States Indian agent, Major George 
E. Clarke, for the sole reason that he had been visiting Law- 
rence. " I have sent another of those damned Abolitionists to 
his winter quarters," boasted Clarke. But Colonel James N. 
Burns, of Missouri, disputed his right to this honor, and, since 
both fired at the same moment, no one has ever been able to 
decide to whom Barber owed his death wound. ^^ 

The night after his abruptly ended speech John Brown 
passed with James F. Legate. He asked Legate for minute 
particulars of the latter's ten years of experience in the South, 
so far as it related to the slaves, asking especially if they 
had any attachment for their masters and would fight for 
liberty. Then they had an argument as to the nature of 
prayer; it ended by Brown's praying for power to repel the 
slaveholders, the enemies of God, and for freedom all over 
the earth. '*'' 

On December 14, Brown, his four sons and their half- 
starved horse, which dragged the heavily laden wagon, were 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 127 

back and settled at Brown's Station, apparently reconciled 
to the treaty, for on that date he wrote to Orson Day of his 
over-sanguine belief that "the Territory is now entirely in 
the power of the Free State men," and of his confident expec- 
tation that the "Missourians will give up all further hope of 
making Kansas a Slave State." '*^ 

The result of the vote on the Free State Constitution, on 
December 15, further helped to make John Brown contented 
with the Shannon compromise. Apparently there was a peace- 
ful winter before them, and this proved to be the case. Its 
very inclemency made further hostile operations impossible, 
and left the Kansans free to keep body and soul together as 
best they could. John Brown himself utilized the opportunity 
to go a number of times into the enemy's country in January 
in search of supplies, without meeting with any unpleasant 
experiences. On January i, 1856, he wrote from West Point, 
Missouri, " In this part of the State there seems to be but little 
feeling on the slave question." *^ As the temperature had 
ranged from ten to twenty-eight degrees below zero in the 
week previous to his writing, and there were in places ten 
inches of snow on the ground, it is obvious that the need of 
pork and flour which made Brown venture forth must have 
been pressing. By the 4th he was back in Osawatomie again, 
for on the 5 th he was appointed chairman of a convention 
in Osawatomie, called for the purpose of nominating State 
officers. His son, John Brown, Jr., was duly nominated for 
the Legislature, and, so Henry Thompson reported the next 
day, "the meeting went off without any excitement and to 
our satisfaction." " This was but an index of the place the 
Browns had already made for themselves, a recognition of 
their dominating characters. Further proof of this is to be 
found in a letter from Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to her mother-in- 
law. Writing on January 6, 1856, she says: "You need not in 
the least feel uneasy about your husband, he seems to enjoy 
life well, and I believe he is now situated so as to do a great 
deal of good ; he certainly seems to be a man here who exhibits 
a great amount of influence and is considered one of the most 
leading and influential minds about here. . . . Our men have 
so much war and elections to attend to that it seems as though 
we were a great while getting into a house." ^* 



128 JOHN BROWN 

On the 8th of January, John Brown went back to Missouri 
for more provisions, accompanied by Salmon and driving the 
faithful horse for the last time, since that hard-worked ani- 
mal must needs be sold to a pro-slavery master, that the pro- 
visions might be obtained for the oxen to bring home, and to 
replace moneys belonging to S. L. Adair used by John Brown 
on the road to Kansas. " By means of the sale of our Horse 
and Waggon: our present wants are tolerably well met; so 
that if health is continued to us we shall not probably suffer 
much," wrote Brown to his wife on February i, on his return 
from a third trip to Missouri. He reported also that the 
weather continued very severe: "It is now nearly Six Weeks 
that the Snow has been almost constantly driven (like dry 
sand) by the fierce Winds of Kansas." There were also serious 
alarms of war: "We have just learned of some new; and shock- 
ing outrages at Leavenworth : and that the Free-State people 
there have fled to Lawrence: which place is again threatend 
with an attack. Should that take place we may soon again 
be called upon to 'buckle on our armor;' which by the help 
of God we will do: when I suppose Henry, & Oliver will have 
a chance." *^ He added, however, that in his judgment there 
would be no general disturbance until warmer weather. In 
this view he was as correct as he had previously been wrong 
in estimating the results of the Wakarusa " war." 

The Leavenworth troubles, to which he referred, were so 
serious as to be taken on both sides as ending the truce signed 
by Shannon. They grew out of the election, on January 15, 
of members of the Free Soil Legislature and the State officers 
under the Topeka Constitution. Just as the Missourians had 
refrained from interfering with the Free State voting in the 
adoption of the Constitution, they now permitted the January 
15 election to pass off in peace, except at Leavenworth, where 
the pro-slavery mayor forbade the holding of the election. It 
took place clandestinely and was then adjourned to Easton, 
twelve miles away, where it was again held on the 17th, de- 
spite the disarming and driving away of some of the Free State 
voters. That night there was severe fighting between the two 
sides, in which the pro-slavery men lost one killed and two 
wounded, while two of the Free Soilerswere injured. Later, 
the pro-slavery forces, which had been reinforced by a militia 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 129 

company, the Kickapoo Rangers, captured Captain Reese P. 
Brown, the leader of the Free State men, as he was returning to 
Leavenworth. Him the Rangers mortally wounded the next 
day, when he was unarmed and defenceless.^"^ "These men, 
or rather demons," reported Phillips to the Tribime, "rushed 
around Brown and literally hacked him to death with their 
hatchets." Not an effort was made to punish the murderers, 
though they were well known to the Territorial authorities. 
Some of the pro-slavery newspapers, like Stringfellow's Squat- 
ter Sovereign, upheld the deed, that journal calling for "War! 
War!! " '*^ The Leavenworth Herald justified the murder and 
gave notice to the Free State men that: "These higher-law 
men will not be permitted longer to carry on their illegal and 
high-handed proceedings. The good sense of the people is 
frowning it down. And if it cannot be in one way it will in 
another." '*^ The Kansas Pioneer of Kickapoo was an acces- 
sory to Brown's murder before the fact, for on the morning 
of the crime it had published this appeal: "Sound the bugle 
of war over the length and breadth of the land and leave 
not an Abolitionist in the Territory to relate their treach- 
erous and contaminating deeds. Strike your piercing rifle 
balls and your glittering steel to their black and poisonous 
hearts." "9 

But the black-hearted Free Soilers voted nevertheless, cast- 
ing, in the entire Territory, 1628 ballots for Mark W. Dela- 
hay, the candidate for delegate to Congress who had just 
previously, on December 22, 1855, had a taste of Missouri 
intolerance, when the printing-presses of his Leavenworth 
newspaper, the Territorial Register, were thrown into the Mis- 
souri River because of the Free Soil sentiments of its editor.^" 
For Charles Robinson as Governor there were cast 1296 votes. 
This result increased the anger of the pro-slavery men. On that 
day of balloting. Sheriff Jones wrote to Robinson and Lane, 
asking whether they had or had not pledged themselves to aid 
him with a posse in serving a writ. Their answer was only 
that they would make no "further resistance to the arrest 
by you of one of the rescuers of Branson, ... as we desire 
to test the validity of the enactments of the body that met 
at the Mission, calling themselves the Kansas Legislature, by 
an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States." ^^ 



130 JOHN BROWN 

Jones and the Border Ruffians thereupon Insisted that the 
Free State men had violated the truce of Lawrence, and 
deemed themselves no longer bound by it. By February 4, 
ex-Senator Atchison was again threatening the sword of ex- 
termination, or rather the bowie-knife: "Send your young 
men . . . drive them [the Abolitionists] out. . . . Get ready, 
arm yourselves; for if they abolitionize Kansas you lose 
$100,000,000 of your property. I am satisfied I can justify 
every act of yours before God and a jury," ^^ — words that 
could not have gone unread at Brown's Station, where they 
received and pored over "Douglas newspapers" as well as 
Free Soil ones. The election had passed off quietly enough 
at Osawatomie, John Brown, Jr., being duly elected to the 
Legislature, but shortly afterwards the minute-men led in the 
expulsion of a claim-jumper, as a result of a settlers' meet- 
ing held on January 24 to consider the case. Henry Thompson, 
John Brown, Jr., and his brothers Oliver and Frederick were 
the committee which, well armed, knocked the man's door in 
and threw his belongings out. Henry Thompson's part was 
watching, with a loaded revolver in his hand, every action of 
the claim-jumper until he disappeared in the distance, vowing 
vengeance on each and every Brown. ^' 

Itwasalsoon January 24, that President Pierce sentaspecial 
message to Congress which aroused the ire of every Free State 
settler, and of every anti-slavery man the country over. In it, 
yielding to the influence of Jefferson Davis, and of Governor 
Shannon, who was then in Washington, he squarely took the 
side of the South, proclaiming the pro-slavery Shawnee Legis- 
lature legal, whatever election frauds might have been com- 
mitted, and denouncing the acts of the Free State men as 
without law and revolutionary in character, "avowedly so 
in motive," which would become "treasonable insurrection" 
if they went to the "length of organized resistance by force to 
the fundamental or any other Federal law, and to the author- 
ity of the general government." On February 11 the Presi- 
dent went even further, and issued a proclamation which de- 
prived the Free State forces of all hope of any aid from the 
Federal Government. It placed the entire authority and power 
of the United States on the side of pro-slavery men, and of all 
those persons who opposed the Topeka movement. While 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 131 

condemning the lawless acts of both sides, he placed the Fort 
Riley and Fort Leavenworth troops at Shannon's behest, 
except that he was cautioned not to call upon them unless it 
was absolutely necessary to do so to enforce the laws and keep 
peace ; even then this proclamation must be read aloud before 
the soldiers acted. Naturally, the South rejoiced and the 
hearts of the defenders of Lawrence were downcast. The 
Squatter Sovereign was emboldened on February 20 to say: 
"In our opinion the only effectual way to correct the evils 
that now exist is to hang up to the nearest tree the very last 
traitor who was instrumental in getting up, or participating 
in, the celebrated Topeka Convention." 

John Brown had anticipated this action of Pierce's, and his 
feelings sought relief on the same day in the following letter 
to Joshua R. Giddings, the well-known anti-slavery Congress- 
man from Ohio: 

OsAWATOMiE Kansas Territory 20th Feby 1856 
Hon. Joshua R. Giddings 

Washington, D. C. 
Dear Sir, 

I write to say that a number of the United States Soldiers are 
quartered in this vicinity for the ostensible purpose of removing 
intruders from certain Indian Lands. It is, however, believed that 
the Administration has no thought of removing the Missourians 
from the Indian Lands; but that the real object is to have these 
men in readiness to act in the enforcement of those Hellish enact- 
ments of the (so called) Kansas Legislature; absolut'jly abominated 
by a great majority of the inhabitants of the Territory; and spurned 
by them up to this time. I confidently believe that the next move- 
ment on the part of the Administration and its Proslavery masters 
will be to drive the people here, either to submit to those Infernal 
enactments; or to assume what will be termed treasonable grounds 
by shooting down the poor soldiers of the country with whom they 
have no quarrel whatever. I ask in the name of Almighty God; I 
ask in the name of our venerated fore-fathers; I ask in the name of 
all that good or true men ever held dear; will Congress suffer us to 
be driven to such "dire extremities " ? Will anything be done ? Please 
send me a few lines at this place. Long acquaintance with your 
public life, and a slight personal acquaintance incline and embolden 
me to make this appeal to yourself. 

" Everything is still on the surface here just now. Circumstances, 
however, are of a most suspicious character. 

Very Respectfully yours, 

John Brown." 



132 JOHN BROWN 

Before this earnest letter was far on its way there came an 
important answer to its appeal, and to the proclamation of 
the President, in the organization of the "National Republi- 
can Party" at Pittsburgh, February 22, 1856, the name of 
Charles Robinson being placed on its National Committee 
as representative of Kansas, on the motion of S. N. Wood, 
leader of the Branson rescuers, who was present as a delegate. 
On account of the terrible weather " — the snow was often 
eighteen inches deep, and the thermometer as low as twenty- 
seven degrees below zero — the mails were slow in leaving 
Kansas, 5« and it was not until March 17 that Mr. Giddings 
assured his Osawatomie correspondent: 

"... you need have no fear of the troops. The President will 
never dare employ the troops of the United States to shoot the citi- 
zens of Kansas. The death of the first man by the troops will involve 
every free State in your own fate. It will light up the fires of civil 
war throughout the North, and we shall stand or fall with you. Such 
an act will also bring the President so deep in infamy that the hand 
of political resurrection will never reach him. . . ."" 

Governor Shannon returned to Kansas on March 5, ex- 
ulting in his having the regular troops commanded by Colo- 
nel Sumner under him, especially as that excellent officer 
had refused to come to his aid during the Wakarusa "war" 
without express authority from Washington. ^^ The day be- 
fore, on March 4, the Free State Legislature had duly as- 
sembled as required by the Topeka Constitution, without 
the slightest regard for Pierce's message or proclamation. ^^ 
It remained in session only eleven days, receiving Governor 
Robinson's inaugural address, electing Governor Lane and 
ex-Governor Reeder Senators of the United States in the 
event of the State's being admitted to the Union, preparing 
a memorial to Congress begging that admission, and receiv- 
ing the report of the Territorial Executive Committee, headed 
by Lane, which then went out of existence. Adjournment 
was on March 15 until July 4, when it met again, only to 
be dispersed by Colonel Sumner's troopers. John Brown, 
Jr., was in attendance at the session in March; his father 
recorded this in a letter to North Elba on March 6, in 
which he also complained of the lack of any letters or news 
because of deep snows and high water, so that, he wrote, " we 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 133 

have no idea what Congress has done since early in Jany :" *" 
John Brown, Jr., did not, however, arrive in Topeka, with 
Henry H. WiUiams, a fellow Representative, until the morn- 
ing of the 5th, so Mr. Williams wrote on the 7th to a friend. 
His letter shows that there was considerable trepidation 
among the arriving delegates in view of Pierce's position. 
"Shannon," he wrote, "is at the Big Springs on a bender I 
learn. . . . Mr. Brown has been put on a committee to se- 
lect six candidates from which three are to be elected Com- 
missioners to revise and codify the laws and rules of prac- 
tise. . . ."" 

Only fifteen of the Topeka legislators signed the memorial 
to Congress asking for the admission of Kansas as a Free 
State under the Topeka Constitution, a copy of which was 
attached to their petition. John Brown, Jr., was of course one 
of the fifteen. ^2 Hq -was also one of the committee of three 
to draft resolutions in regard to the murder of Captain R. P. 
Brown. He figured also as a member of the standing com- 
mittee on vice and immorality, and presented a petition from 
fifty-six ladies of Topeka praying for the enactment of a law 
prohibiting the manufacture and sale of liquor,^^ for all of 
which legislative service, and for his subsequent partaking in 
the meetings of the committee to select the commissioners 
to codify the laws,^^ this unfortunate man paid a terrible 
price within the next three months. Soon after John Brown, 
Jr., returned, his father, Frederick and Oliver Brown, and 
Henry Thompson went on a surveying tour to the west of 
their settlement, fixing the boundaries of their lands for the 
Indian neighbors they had learned to respect and like. The 
Ottawas, having found that many whites were settling on 
their lands, held a council and asked the Browns to trace their 
southern boundary. "There is a good many settlers on their 
lands," wTOte Henry Thompson to his wife, "that will prob- 
ably have to leave — mostly proslavery." ^^ This prospect 
could hardly have raised the Browns in the esteem of these 
neighbors and their sympathizers. This surveying party was, 
however, one of those experiences in Kansas which made 
Henry Thompson write to his wife a month later, April 16, 
when the outlook for the Free State had grown gloomy 
enough: " It is a great trial to me to stay away from you, but 



134 J<^HN BROWN 

I am here, and feel I have a sacrifice to make, a duty to per- 
form. Can I leave that undone and feel easy, and have a 
conscience void of offence? Should I ever feel that I had not 
put my hand to the plough and looked back?"^^ It was 
not only the cause which held Mr. Thompson in Kansas, but 
his very great regard for John Brown. Upon Brown's plans 
he later wrote to his wife, would depend his own, "until 
School is out." " 

April 1 6 was also the date of a settlers' meeting of momen- 
tous importance to Osawatomie. It attracted widespread at- 
tention elsewhere in the Territory, since it was the first open 
defiance, after the President's proclamation, by any body of 
men, of the Shawnee Legislature's laws. The call for the gath- 
ering was signed by twenty-three citizens, who wished to con- 
fer as to the proper attitude to be taken toward the officials 
appointed by the Shawnee Legislature to assess property and 
collect taxes. Richard Mendenhall presided, and there was 
full discussion of the situation. ^^ No less ominous a figure 
than the Rev. Martin White presented the Border Ruffian 
side. The Rev. S. L. Adair, brother-in-law of John Brown, 
recorded many years later that "Martin White stood up for 
the laws, and charged rebellion and treason on all who de- 
clined to obey them. Captain John Brown was for regarding 
the Legislature as a fraud and their laws as a farce and their 
slave code as wicked, and if an attempt was made to enforce 
them to resist it." Martin White put It differently. " I went," 
he declared in a speech to the Kansas Legislature In Febru- 
ary, 1857, when telling of his experiences with the Free State 
men, "to one of their meetings and tried to reason with them 
for peace, but in so doing I insulted the hero [John Brown] 
of the murder of the three Doyles, Wilkinson and Sherman, 
and he replied to me and said that he was an 'Abolitionist 
of the old stock — was dyed in the wool and that negroes 
were his brothers and equals — that he would rather see this 
Union dissolved and the country drenched with blood than 
to pay taxes to the amount of one-hundredth part of a mill.' " 
As to his own position, Mr. Adair testified: "I had said but 
little. But the question was put directly: was I ready to obey 
the laws or to take up arms against them? I replied I should 
not regard the authority of those laws, yet was not ready 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 135 

to take up arms against them but was ready if necessary to 
suffer penalties." This was the spirit in which the Free Soil 
pioneers were meeting the situation created by Pierce's sid- 
ing with the pro-slavery forces. They were willing to "suffer 
penalties" for their beliefs in the good old New England 
fashion, and were in no wise to be swerved from their sense of 
duty by the thundering of the highest authority in the land. 
As a result of the discussion and the appointment of a com- 
mittee of five to prepare them, the following resolutions were 
adopted by the meeting: 

Resolved, That we utterly repudiate the authority of that Legis- 
lature as a body, emanating not from the people of Kansas, but 
elected and forced upon us by a foreign vote, and that the officers 
appointed by the same, have therefore no legal power to act. 

Resolved, That we pledge to one another mutual support and aid 
in a forcible resistance to any attempt to compel us with obedience 
to those enactments, let that attempt come from whatever source it 
may, and that if men appointed by that legislature to the office of 
Assessor or Sheriff, shall hereafter attempt to assess or collect taxes 
of us, they will do so at the peril of such consequences as shall be 
necessary to prevent same. 

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to inform such 
officers of the action of this meeting by placing in their hands a copy 
of these resolutions. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions with the proceedings 
of this meeting be furnished to the several papers of Kansas with 
a request to publish the same. 

Richard Mendenhall, Pres't.^^ 

Oscar V. Dayton, Sec'ry. 

One cannot but admire the courage which prompted this 
spreading abroad of the decision of the meeting. It was, how- 
ever, soon to have dire results for the little settlement itself. 

About this same time there had come to a neighboring pro- 
slavery settlement of the Shermans, one of whom was known 
as "Dutch Henry," a Judge, Sterling G. Cato, to hold court 
in the name of the bogus Territorial Legislature. The Browns 
soon heard that he had issued warrants for their arrest, 
either because of their participation in the meeting of April 
16, or because of prior dislike of them as Abolitionists. John 
Brown sent to the court his son Salmon and Henry Thompson, 
"to see," so Salmon Brown affirms, "if Cato would arrest us. 
We went over ten miles afoot and stood around to see if they 



136 JOHN BROWN 

would carry out their threat. I did not like it. I did not want 
to be in the middle of a rescue. That's a risky situation. I 
thought father was wild to send us, but he wanted to hurry up 
the fight — always." ^° This ruse having failed, Brown himself 
went with his armed company to see what was going on. The 
result of this he described to his brother-in-law, Adair: 

Brown's Station, 22d April, 1856. 
Dear Brother Adair : — 

. . . Yesterday we went to Dutch Henrys to see how things were 
going at Court, my boys turned out to train at a house near by. 
Many of the volunteer Co. went in without show of arms to hear 
the charge to Grand Jury. The Court is thoroughly Bogus but the 
Judge had not the nerve to avow it openly. He was questioned on 
the bench in writing civilly but plainly whether he intended to 
enforce the Bogus Laws or not ; but would give no answer. He did 
not even mention the so called Kansas Legislature or name their 
acts but talked of our laws; it was easy for any one conversant with 
law matters to discover what code he was charging the jury under. 
He evidently felt much agitated but talked a good deal about hav- 
ing criminals punished, &c. After hearing the charge and witnessing 
the refusal of the Judge to answer, the volunteers met under arms 
passed the Osawatomie Preamble & Resolutions, every man voting 
aye. They also appointed a committee of Three to wait on the 
Judge at once with a coppy in full; which was immediately done. 
The effect of that I have not yet learned. You will see that matters 
are in a fair way of comeing to a head. 

Yours sincerely in haste, 

John Brown" 

James Hanway, a leading Free State settler, has recorded 
the following additional details of this occurrence: 

"John Brown, Jr. left the court room, and in the yard he called 
out in a loud voice: 'The Pottawattomie Rifle Company will rneet 
at the parade ground,' and the company consisting of some thirty 
men, marched off to meet as ordered. There was not a disrespectful 
word uttered, nor were there deadly weapons displayed on the oc- 
casion — there were doubtless a few pocket pistols, but they were 
hid from sight. Between dark and daylight. Judge Cato and his 
officials had left; they journeyed toward Lecompton in Douglas 
County, which was the Bastile of the proslavery party. This was 
the first and the last of the proslavery court holding their sessions 
in this section of the country."" 

This incident, Mr. Hanway added, got into the pro-slavery 
newspapers in a magnified and distorted form, and became 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 137 

a standing charge against the Free State party of Kansas as 
one of their heinous crimes, for Judge Cato portrayed him- 
self thereafter as a court compelled to flee for safety. 

About the time that Judge Cato's court was in session at 
Dutch Henry's, there arrived in the neighborhood a com- 
pany of Southerners who had come to the Territory from 
Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, in order to make it 
a slave State. John Brown lost no time in discovering their 
objects, and he did it in a manner which has become famous 
in Kansas. "Father," says Salmon Brown, "had taken advan- 
tage of his knowledge of surveying, and, as a surveyor, ran a 
line through their camp. He had been surveying the old In- 
dian lands, previously, for the Indians. The Border Ruffians 
never suspected us to be anything but friends, for only pro- 
slavery men got government jobs then, and surveyors were 
supposed to be government officers. So they talked freely 
about their plans and one big fellow said : ' We came up here for 
self first and the South next. But one thing we will do before 
we leave, we '11 clear out the damned Brown crowd.' " ^^ This 
last was an empty boast, as time showed. But the arrival of 
these men in the neighborhood of Osawatomie was but an- 
other sign of the impending crisis. They were part of the force 
raised by Major Jefferson Buford at Eufaula, Silver Run and 
Columbus, Georgia, and Montgomery, Alabama, as the result 
of an appeal for Southern emigrants to settle in Kansas. ^^ 
The organization was military, but the men went unarmed as 
far as Kansas City, where they arrived between four and five 
hundredstrong, late in April. On May 2 they passed into Kan- 
sas with weapons in plenty, scattering for a time in search 
of homes, only to be called upon in short order as a military 
force. But before this came to pass, they had added greatly 
to the terror of the Free Soil settlers by their swashbuckling 
marches through the Territory. Just as they left Montgomery, 
Buford's men had been marched to the bookstore of the 
Messrs. Mcllvaine in that city, where each man received a 
Bible. "But," says a correspondent of the Tribune, "on the 
trip up the river [from St. Louis] the Bibles were thrown 
promiscuously into a large bucket on the hurricane deck, and 
the company were below handling an article known among 
gamblers as a 'pocket testament.'" ^^ "The people of West- 



138 JOHN BROWN 

port were glad to see Buford's men come; they were doubly 
glad when they went away finally," reported an old citizen 
of Westport, and there is little doubt that they got out of 
hand soon after entering Kansas, for as settlers they were 
a dismal failure. When their service in the sack of Lawrence 
was over, after pillaging and roaming for a while, they gradu- 
ally began to return to the South. 

Here those who returned afforded fresh proof of the inabil- 
ity of that section to colonize its favorite institution as far 
North and West as Kansas. A number enlisted in the United 
States troops in Kansas, while others went over to the Free 
State men and thus became traitors to the cause of human 
bondage. Still others stayed for months near Westport, a 
veritable plague to their friends. ^^ In short, the expedition 
was a disastrous failure politically, economically and finan- 
cially; it served no other purpose than to aid in the wanton 
destruction of part of the city of Lawrence and the throwing 
into chains of the Free State leaders. 

Beyond doubt the arrival of Buford's men raised high the 
spirits of the Southern leaders, who fondly believed that there 
would now be sufficient emigration of their own people to 
offset the continuing stream of arrivals from New England, 
notably a remarkable colony from New Haven, one hundred 
strong, who settled sixty-five miles above Lawrence on the 
Kansas River and, unlike Buford's men, knew how to plough 
and plant. "Our town," wrote a correspondent of the Trib- 
une from Lawrence on April 19, "is crowded with immigrants 
from all parts. A number of companies are camping here, 
anxiously awaiting their exploring committees, who have 
gone out to look at different localities. There is a large com- 
pany from Ohio — one from Connecticut — one from New 
Hampshire, and others are daily arriving. . . . The emi- 
grants of this season are much superior to those of last year. 
They come in the face of difficulties and are prepared to meet 
them." " But fears of a similar tide of Southerners impelled 
Horace Greeley to impassioned editorials urging the youth 
of the Northeast to save Kansas, by force of arms and de- 
votion to principle. ^^ A correspondent of the Albany Journal, 
writing on March 16 from a steamboat on the Mississippi, 
gave this picture of the outlook: 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 139 

"I have just come up from Tennessee and let me assure you that 
the South are now moving in earnest in sending settlers to Kansas. 
I heard a letter from Kansas . . . read at a Kansas meeting, in 
which the South were (sic) urged to send their men immediately. 
'The only hope,' the writer stated, was in sending on enough to 
whip the d — d Abolitionists before the 1st of July, or the Territory 
would be lost. The writer says: 'There are now at least three Abo- 
litionists to one friend of the South, and if anything is done it must 
be done quickly.'" 

A Tribune correspondent in Kansas City wrote late in April 
that: "It is unquestionable that the South has gone into the 
' actual settlement ' business to a great extent this Spring." " 
Horace Greeley himself wrote to his newspaper from Wash- 
ington on March i : 

"The Free-State men of Kansas now in this city have letters from 
various points in that embryo State down to the i8th and 19th ult. 
Their general tone implies apprehension that a bloody collision is 
imminent. The Border Ruffians have been raised entirely off their 
feet by Pierce's extraordinary Messages, which they regard as a com- 
plete endorsement of all their past outrages and an incitement to 
persevere in their diabolical work. It is believed by our friends that 
the organization of the State Government at Topeka the coming 
week will be made the pretext for a raid, and if possible a butchery, 
at the hands of the Slavery party. . . ."*° 

It was only in the time set that this prognostication was 
wrong. But meanwhile, as James Redpath has recorded, 
the acts of the Washington allies of Atchison, Stringfellow 
and Jones were daily making of the Free State pioneers more 
and more ardent advocates of freedom, and unifying them in 
their determination to resist to the last the pro-slavery ag- 
gressions : 

"I have heard men who were semi-Southerners before, declare 
with Garrison: 

" ' I am an Abolitionist! 

I glory in the name ! ' — 
since Kansas was invaded. I have heard others hint that even 
Garrison himself was rather an old fogy, because he does not go far 
enough in opposition to Slavery. 'The world does move.' " ^' 

In April the pro-slavery net began to tighten around Law- 
rence. Sheriff Jones had reappeared there on April 19, 1856, 
to vex anew its citizens. He had decided that it was time for 



140 JOHN BROWN 

him to attempt again the arrest of those persons who five 
months previously had taken from him his prisoner Branson. 
Jones's thumbs had begun to itch for S. N. Wood, the leader 
of the rescuers; he was, therefore, quite willing to take Rob- 
inson and Lane at their word, that they would not resist the 
enforcement of a writ by proper authority, and quite ready 
to take a chance — if he did not court it — of again em- 
broiling the citizens of Lawrence with the Territorial authori- 
ties. Jones easily found Wood and arrested him, but in the 
crowd which speedily gathered he lost his prisoner. ^^ Jones 
reappeared the next day and called on the citizens to help 
him serve the four warrants he had in his hands. The crowd 
refused, saying, 'Take the muster roll, Jones, we all resist.' ^^ 
Jones then personally laid hands on Samuel F. Tappan, who 
thereupon struck the sheriff in the face. This was sufficient 
resistance to satisfy the sheriff, who forthwith left, returning 
three days later, on April 23, with First Lieutenant James Mc- 
intosh, of the First Cavalry, and ten troopers. With the aid 
of these regulars he arrested six citizens on the extraordi- 
nary charge of contempt of court, in that they had declined to 
aid him in serving his warrants, — an unheard-of form of the 
crime of disrespect to the judiciary. His prisoners were put 
in a tent to await the pleasure of their captor. That evening, 
while Jones was sitting in his tent, with his shadow outlined 
against it by the light within, he was shot from without and 
gravely wounded by James N. Filer, ^* a young New Yorker, 
though the blame long rested on Charles Lenhart, a printer, 
subsequently prominent in the attempt to rescue Brown 
from his Virginia prison. Lenhart was undoubtedly outside 
the tent when Jones was shot, and as he was a reckless fellow, 
suspicion not unnaturally fell upon him. 

Nothing more unfortunate could have happened for the 
citizens of Lawrence than the shooting of Jones, even though 
his life was spared, for the pro- slavery newspapers at once 
announced his death, and called upon their readers to avenge 
his murder. None of the regrets that the citizens of Law- 
rence expressed could undo the injury inflicted by Filer's 
shot. They held a mass meeting on April 24, addressed by 
Reeder, Robinson, Grosvenor P. Lowry and others, who con- 
demned the crime in proper terms as cowardly and dastardly.** 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 141 

But their expressions went for naught. It was precisely the 
overt act needed to give Jones and his men the appear- 
ance of being hindered in the performance of their duty, and 
assaulted because of their devotion to it. The scene of the 
shooting — Lawrence — was particularly satisfactory to the 
pro-slavery party, since it enabled them to concentrate anew 
their enmity upon that hated town. "We are now in favor 
of levelling Lawrence and chastising the Traitors there con- 
gregated, should it result in total destruction of the Union," 
declared the Squatter Sovereign on April 29, 1856. A week 
later, May 6, still keeping alive the falsehood of Jones's 
death, it thus incited to murder: 

"When a proslavery man gets into a difficulty with an Abolition- 
ist let him think of the murdered Jones and Clark, and govern him- 
self accordingly. In a fight, let our motto be, 'War to the knife, 
and knife to the hilt;' asking no quarters from them and granting 
none. Jones' Murder Must Be Revenged!! " 

Appeals like this speedily bore fruit. On the next day, 
J. N. Mace, a Free State settler, who had testified before the 
Howard Committee then sitting at Lawrence, was shot in the 
leg by two men, who, thinking him dead, went off, rejoicing 
in his hearing that there was "more abolition bait for the 
wolves." ^^ At an indignation meeting held in Lawrence on 
May 2 to consider Mace's case. Governor Robinson again 
soothed the perturbed feelings of the multitude, urged his 
listeners to go on making laws of their own, but not to give 
way to any spirit of revenge, and deprecated the attack upon 
Sheriff Jones as cowardly and base.^^ April 30 had been a 
fateful day for the Rev. Pardee Butler, who, undeterred by 
his being sent down the Missouri on a raft by his neighbors, 
returned then to Atchison. He was immediately stripped and 
cottoned (for lack of feathers), turned loose on the prairie, 
and a committee of three was appointed to hang him the 
next time he came to Atchison. His sole offence, according 
to his own testimony, was his telling the Squatter Sovereign 
that he was a Free Soiler and meant to vote accordingly. ^^ 
On May 19 there fell, shot in the back near Blanton's 
Bridge, John Jones, who, according to the existing evidence, 
gave up his life merely because he, a boy of twenty, was 



142 JOHN BROWN 

accused of being an Abolitionist.*^ Three young men, Charles 
Lenhart, John Stewart and John E. Cook (who subsequently 
died on a Virginia gibbet, after John Brown), rode out toward 
the scene of this crime as soon as it was reported. On their 
way to Blanton's Bridge they fell in with several Missourians, 
who subsequently testified that they were fired upon first and 
one of them wounded ; that in self-defence they shot and killed 
Stewart. Lenhart and Cook stated that Stewart hailed the 
Missourians by asking them where they were going. Their 
reply was a shot and Stewart fell dead. The Free State men 
with him were convinced that Coleman, the murderer of Dow, 
had in this case also fired the fatal shot.^" 

Judge Lecompte next stirred up the Territory in behalf of 
the pro-slavery cause by charging the grand jury in session at 
Lecompton during the second week in May that all the laws 
passed by the Shawnee Legislature were of United States 
authority and making; that, therefore, all who "resist these 
laws, resist the power and authority of the United States; 
and are therefore, guilty of high treason." * "If," he con- 
tinued, laying down a principle new in American judicial 
procedure, "you find that no such resistance has been made, 
but that combinations have been formed for the purpose of 
resisting them, and that individuals of influence and notori- 
ety have been aiding and abetting in such combinations, then 
must you find bills for constructive treason.'' At once, with- 
out hearing any witnesses, the grand jury indicted Reeder, 
Robinson, Lane, George W. Brown, George W. Deitzler, 
Samuel N. Wood, Gaius Jenkins and George W. Smith on the 
charge of treason.^ ^ It is in keeping with this performance that 
Governor Robinson, who, with his wife, had left Lawrence at 
its most critical moment, in order to lay the true situation be- 
fore the friends of Free Kansas in the East, should have been 
taken from the steamer Star of the West at Lexington, Mis- 
souri, on May lo, on the charge of fleeing from an indict- 
ment, when that indictment was not reported by the jury until 

* "Section 3, Article 3, of the Constitution of the United States says: "Trea- 
son against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or 
in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall 
be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two witnesses to the same 
overt act, or on Confession in open Court." 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 143 

a week after his detention.^^ Better evidence of the way the 
whole machinery of justice was being prostituted to pro- 
slavery ends could hardly be produced; it resulted in Robin- 
son's being taken to Leavenworth, where he remained until 
his release on bail of five thousand dollars, on September 10, 
after four months' confinement. Ex-Governor Reeder escaped 
from Kansas in disguise, after having claimed protection in 
vain as a witness before the Howard Committee, and having 
told the United States deputy marshal that any attempt to 
take him prisoner would be attended with serious results.^^ 
Lane escaped Robinson's fate only by happening to be in 
Indiana on a visit. The Free Soil movement was thus deprived 
of its leaders. But the complaisant Lecompton grand jury 
was not content with indictment for treason; it took the still 
more extraordinary course of recommending the abatement 
as nuisances of the Lawrence Free Soil newspapers. The 
Herald of Freedom and TJie Kansas Free State. Charging that 
the Free State Hotel in Lawrence had been built for use as a 
fortress as well as a caravansary, the jurors expressed their 
opinion that its demolition was desirable. 

Ex-Governor Reeder's refusal to submit to arrest was a 
greatly desired opportunity to another Jones, the United 
States marshal for Kansas Territory, I. B. Donaldson. He at 
once issued (on May 11) the following proclamation: 

To The People of Kansas Territory : 

Whereas, certain judicial writs of arrest have been directed tome 
by the First District Court of the United States, etc., to be executed 
within the county of Douglas: and, whereas, an attempt to execute 
them by the United States Deputy Marshal was violently resisted 
by a large number of citizens of Lawrence; and as there is every 
reason to believe that any attempt to execute these writs will be 
resisted by a large body of armed men: 

Now, therefore, the law-abiding citizens of the Territory are com- 
manded to be and appear at Lecompton as soon as practicable, and 
in numbers sufficient for the proper execution of the law.^^ 

Like Sheriff Jones, Donaldson believed most of the law- 
abiding citizens of Kansas lived in Missouri, for his proclama- 
tion went first to the border towns and to Leavenworth and 
Atchison, the strongest pro-slavery settlements in Kansas.^^ 
Before the proclamation was known to the Free Soil settlers, 



144 JOHN BROWN 

the Border Ruffians had begun to assemble in the neighbor- 
hood of Lawrence, stopping travellers, patrolling the roads, 
even pillaging, as if they were a conquering army, and gener- 
ally in high feather, for this time they felt certain of their 
prey, since it had been officially delivered over to them. The 
United States Court had issued the warrants; the United 
States marshal had called out them instead of the United 
States troops, who, after their visit in numbers to Lawrence 
under Colonel Sumner upon the shooting of Jones, had been 
allowed to return to their garrisons. In the Wakarusa " war," 
Shannon, not having power over the regulars, called eagerly 
for their aid; now that they were at his disposal, he refused to 
send them to Lawrence for the protection of its citizens, as 
the latter implored him to, or to urge Donaldson to use them 
as his posse.* Whereas in the previous December Governor 
Shannon had been willing to keep the peace, and eager to 
arrive at a compromise, he was ready now to have the tables 
turned upon those who had tricked him when in his cups, 
well knowing what the outcome would be. "But so long," he 
wrote to the Lawrence committee which begged protection of 
him, "as they [the citizens of Lawrence] keep up a military 
or armed organization to resist Territorial laws and the offi- 
cers charged with their execution, I shall not interpose to 
save them from the legitimate consequences of their illegal 
acts."9« 

It was the van of Donaldson's forces which killed Stewart 
and Jones. His band comprised, first, Buford's newly arrived 
men, whom their leader hastily called together from their easy- 
going search for home-sites, four hundred in all responding. 
They represented in Donaldson's eyes, after being nineteen 
days in Kansas, the "law-abiding citizens of the Territory." 
General David R. Atchison, of Missouri, headed a Missouri 
company, the Platte County Riflemen, with two pieces 
of artillery; while the Kickapoo Rangers, who had hacked 
Captain R. P. Brown to death, and other Kansas pro-slavery 
companies eagerly joined the forces." Both the Stringfellows 

* When President Pierce heard of Donaldson's plans, he was much worried, 
and telegraphed to Shannon suggesting that the United States troops be used, 
and then only after the marshal had met with actual resistance. The telegram 
came too late to be of avail. See Kansas Historical Collections, vol. 4, p. 414. 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 145 

were there, ready to be in at the death, and hoping that this 
meant the extermination of the hated Abolitionists. About 
seven hundred and fifty in all, this "swearing, whiskey- 
drinking, ruffianly horde," ^^ ^^^o ^^gj-g ^j^^j-g ^^ uphold the 
majesty of the law, appeared near Lawrence on May 21, 
after a committee from there had vainly tried to induce 
Marshal Donaldson to agree to a compromise by which the 
town should be surrendered to Colonel Sumner and his cav- 
alry regiment, to be held until the writs were served.^^ But 
the serving of the warrants was not Donaldson's real purpose, 
nor that of the men associated with him. The deputy mar- 
shal. Fain, made two arrests in Lawrence without difficulty 
or resistance, on the evening of May 20.io» Accompanied by 
ten unarmed men, he returned at eleven o'clock the next 
morning and summoned five citizens of Lawrence to join his 
posse; they did so, and he then arrested George W. Deitzler, 
George W. Smith and Gains Jenkins on the charge of treason. 
They submitted cheerfully. While Fain was at the Free State 
Hotel, he received a communication from the eight citizens 
of Lawrence who were acting as a committee of public safety. 
This committee, speaking for the entire town, acknowledged 
the "constituted authorities of the Government," and stated 
that they would "make no resistance to the execution of the 
law National or Territorial." This submission was In vain. 
Fain, having his prisoners In hand, announced to the Bor- 
der Ruffians that he had peacefully accomplished his purpose, 
but added that Sheriff Jones had writs yet to be served, and 
that they could act as his posse if they desired. 

With the utmost alacrity the Invitation was accepted, but 
no pretence of serving any writs was made. The Southerners 
were stimulated by the oratory of Atchison, but recently 
presiding officer of the United States Senate, who declared 
among other things: "And now we will go in with our highly 
honorable Jones, and test the strength of that damned Free 
State Hotel. Be brave, be orderly, and If any man or woman 
stand In your way, blow them to hell with a chunk of cold 
lead." But they did not go in until the Free State men 
had surrendered their arms to Jones, as further evidence of 
good faith. Once in, there was no John Brown to counsel 
resistance to them, no Lane to lead, and no Robinson to tern- 



146 JOHN BROWN 

porize. There was no real leader. The military company, 
the Stubbs, was not in evidence. There were only two hun- 
dred rifles and ten kegs of powder in all Lawrence. Many of 
the citizens were either in arrest or in hiding to escape capture. 
Many others had left town to save their families. So no de- 
fence was attempted when the two newspaper offices were 
destroyed and the types, papers, presses and books thrown 
into the river. The Free State Hotel remained, however, 
and the order of the court that it be "abated" was not yet 
enforced. Here Major Buford again protested that he had 
not come to Kansas to destroy property, and Atchison seems 
to have been sobered some. But Jones wanted his triumph 
complete, and the Free State Hotel was soon in flames, after 
the pro-slavery cannon had sent thirty- two shot into it, 
Atchison firing the first shot.if'i "This," said Jones, "is the 
happiest moment of my life." As the walls of the hotel fell, 
he cried out in glee, "I have done it, by God, I have done 
it," ^"2 and it in no wise troubled him that, when he dismissed 
his drunken posse, as the hotel lay in ruins, it promptly robbed 
the town, winding up by the burning of Governor Robinson's 
house. The majesty of the law was upheld ; its flouting by 
Free Soilers avenged. 

The pro-slavery leaders and their disbanded followers left 
the Territory exulting in their victory, and wholly unable to 
realize that it was not only to be their defeat, but that they 
had let loose a veritable Pandora's box of evil passions, and 
finally inaugurated a reign of bloodshed, midnight assassina- 
tion and guerrilla warfare. Besides, they had aroused the 
whole North to fresh anger by the destruction of Lawrence, 
at first reported to have been accompanied by heavy loss of 
life. The inscriptions on their banners, "Southern Rights" 
and "South Carolina" and 

"Let Yankees tremble, abolitionists fall, 
Our Motto is, Give Southern rights to all," ^"^ 

alone brought dozens of recruits to the Free State cause. 
"From this time no further effort was required to raise 
colonies. They raised themselves," records Eli Thayer, the 
Worcester, Massachusetts, organizer of the Emigrant Aid So- 
cieties.*"'^ The raiding of Lawrence put an arsenal of argu- 



THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 147 

ments into the hands of the new-born Republican party, and 
fastened the nation's attention on the Territory. On the 
day of the raid, Horace Greeley declared that the "bloody 
collision in Kansas," which seemed to him "almost inevitable," 
would "hardly fail to shake the Union to its center." ^^^ 



CHAPTER V 
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 

To his "Dear Wife and Children Every One," wrote John 
Brown, "near Brown's Station, K. T., June, 1856," as fol- 
lows: ^ 

"It is now about five weeks since I have seen a line from North 
Elba, or had any chance of writing you. During that period we 
here have passed through an almost constant series of very trying 
events. We were called to go to the relief of Lawrence, May 22, 
and every man (eight in all) except Orson [Day], turned out; he 
staying with the women and children, and to take care of the cattle. 
John was captain of a company to which Jason belonged; the other 
six were a little company by ourselves. On our way to Lawrence 
we learned that it had been already destroyed, and we encamped 
with John's company over night. Next day our little company left, 
and during the day we stopped and searched three men. ... On 
the second day and evening after we left John's men we encountered 
quite a number of proslavery men, and took quite a number of pris- 
oners. Our prisoners we let go ; but we kept some four or five horses. 
We were immediately after this accused of murdering five men at 
Pottawatomie, and great efforts have since been made by the Mis- 
sourians and their ruffian allies to capture us. John's company soon 
afterward disbanded, and also the Osawatomie men." 

In this brief, equivocal fashion John Brown reported to the 
absent members of his family that event in his life which made 
him most famous in Kansas and has caused more discussion 
than any other single event in the history of Kansas Territory. 
Upon the degree of criminality, if any, which should attach 
to John Brown for his part in the proceedings, the debate 
in Kansas to-day is almost as bitter as at the time of the 
crime, or when Brown's tragic end kindled the Kansas inter- 
est in it anew. As one views Brown's conduct in the killing of 
the five pro-slavery men on Pottawatomie Creek depends to a 
large degree the place which may be assigned to him in history. 
Certainly, without a clear appreciation of what happened on 
the night of the 24th to the 25th of May, 1856, a true under- 
standing of Brown, the man, cannot be reached. The actual 



MURDER ON THE P0TTAWAT0A4IE 149 

details have been veiled for nearly half a century in a mystery 
which the confessions of one of the party only partially dis- 
pelled. Fortunately for the truth of history, there are two other 
participants, Henry Thompson and Salmon Brown, still sur- 
viving after this long stretch of time, who have now set forth 
what happened. There are also many narratives of contempo- 
rary witnesses available which, when weighed together, make 
possible not only a real knowledge of the conditions prece- 
dent to the Pottawatomie massacre, but of its effects upon 
the Free Soil cause. 

John Brown, Jr., was engaged in planting corn when the 
messenger from Lawrence arrived. "Without delay," he re- 
corded in a defence of his father, ^ "I rode to Osawatomie 
with the word and then rallied the men of my company whose 
homes were mostly on Pottawatomie and Middle Creeks." 
His first lieutenant, Henry H. Williams, assisted him in this 
work, and by six o'clock in the evening thirty-four armed 
men met at the rendezvous, the junction of the Osawatomie 
and California roads. "The 'Marion Rifles' and * Pomeroy 
Guards' from Osawatomie," narrated Williams,^ in what is 
truly most valuable contemporary testimony, since it was 
written only two months after the event, while Williams was 
still a prisoner at Leavenworth, "had promised to meet us 
here by agreement, but only two men came, who reported 
that another messenger from Lawrence had arrived and con- 
tradicted the former report, and that, therefore, the Osawato- 
mie companies would await further orders. The Pottawato- 
mies, however, agreed to push on to Lawrence and ascertain 
the facts for themselves. Accordingly we moved on, and two 
miles from the Meridezene [Marais des Cygnes] we met a mes- 
senger from near Lawrence who reported that the Border 
Rufhans had taken the town without any resistance and were 
razing it to the ground. This startling news was received in 
silence by the company. Then the word ' onward ' was passed 
along the line and although scarcely a word was spoken the 
thoughts of every one could be read in his countenance. We 
pushed on, and a messenger was dispatched to arouse the 
settlers at Osawatomie. At Prairie City we learned that there 
was no organized Free State force in Lawrence and that the 
' Border Ruffians ' were in possession of Blanton's Bridge, 



150 JOHN BROWN 

and had assembled in force at Lecompton. We concluded 
to encamp at Prairie City and await reinforcements." 

At this camp the company of John Brown, Jr., and Lieuten- 
ant H. H. WilHams remained until the next day, the 23d. Cap- 
tain Shore and his Osawatomie company, together with the 
"Pomeroy Guards," joined the camp, bringing details of the 
sack of Lawrence and also the news that a force of four hun- 
dred men under Buford was in camp a few miles to the east.^ 
That evening, hearing that Governor Robinson was being 
taken, a prisoner, from Westport to Lecompton, guarded by 
Border Rufhans, the three companies moved to Palmyra (now 
the prosperous town of Baldwin), then a little near-by settle- 
ment, twelve miles from Lawrence, in order that they might 
rescue the Free State leader if he were brought that way over 
the Santa Fe trail. ^ In their new camp they were joined by the 
Marion Rifles, Captain Updegraff. On the 24th, Captain John 
Brown, Jr., went with a scouting party into Lawrence to view 
the ruins. ^ His report and that of his men, that the citizens 
of that ill-fated town had not united in defending themselves 
against the common enemy, made the four companies at 
Palmyra decide they could not fight Lawrence's battles alone. 
"Accordingly," wrote Mr. Williams, "we broke up our camp, 
each company returning to its respective locality, the men 
dispersing to their homes." This homeward movement was 
hastened by the arrival of thirteen soldiers of the First Cav- 
alry under Second Lieutenant John R. Church, a young West 
Pointer, whose official report of the meeting, dated May 26, 
1856, has fortunately been preserved. Lieutenant Church, 
after a long talk with John Brown, Jr., ordered him to dis- 
band the camp in compliance with his (Church's) orders to 
disperse all armed bodies he encountered, whether pro-slavery 
or Free Soil.^ 

Curiously enough, the Pottawatomies returned to their 
homes the next day under the command of a new captain, 
Henry H. Williams, having deposed John Brown, Jr., on his 
way back from Lawrence, because he had freed two slaves.^ 
"The arrival of those slaves in camp next morning caused a 
commotion," so their liberator has recorded. "The act of free- 
ing them, though attended by no violence or bloodshed, was 
freely denounced, and in accordance with a vote given by a 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 151 

large majority of the men, those freed persons, in opposition to 
my expressed will, were returned to their master. The driver 
of the team which carried them overtaking him on his way 
to Westport, received a side-saddle as his reward." There 
was still another reason why the men of John Brown, Jr.'s 
company chose a new captain. On this same day, when the 
company was near Ottawa Creek on its return, a rider came 
tearing into camp — his horse panting and lathered with 
foam — and without dismounting yelled out: "Five men have 
been killed on Pottawatomie Creek, butchered and most 
brutally mangled, and old John Brown has done it!" — 
thus Jason Brown records it. "This information," he states, 
"caused great excitement and fear among the men of our com- 
pany and a feeling arose against John and myself which led 
the men all to desert us." ^ 

As John Brown himself wrote to his family, he and a small 
party left his son's company the morning after their long 
night tramp to Prairie City, on Friday, May 23. The cir- 
cumstances leading up to his departure are thus set forth by 
Jason Brown: 

"Father cooked for our company. While he was cooking break- 
fast, I heard him, Townsley and Weiner talking together. I heard 
Townsleysay: 'We expect to be butchered, every Free State set- 
tler in our region,' and Townsley pleaded that help should be sent. 
I heard their talk only in fragments. Then I heard father say to 
Weiner: 'Now something must be done. We have got to defend our 
families and our neighbors as best we can. Something is going to 
be done now. We must show by actual work that there are two sides 
to this thing and that they cannot go on with impunity.'" '° 

Weiner also told Martin Van Buren Jackson, in the camp, 
" that he, his man Benjamin and also Bondi, had been insulted, 
abused and ordered to leave the county within three days, by 
the Shermans and other pro-slavery parties living in the 
neighborhood of Dutch Henry's Crossing; and that Dutch 
Bill (Sherman), as he w^as called, was drunk and very abu- 
sive. He said this was the second time they had been to his 
place in the past few days, and he did not propose to stand 
such treatment much longer." ^^ 

Moved by this and other provocations, John Brown acted 
at once. "Pottawatomie," says Salmon Brown, "was resolved 



152 JOHN BROWN 

upon by father, supported by the leading men in John's com- 
pany — maybe a dozen — and by his own crowd. The plan 
was thoroughly discussed there in camp, not before the whole 
company, but in the council thus selected." ^^ August Bondi, 
a faithful follower of John Brown, remembers the council 
well, for Brown used to him practically the same words — 
"Something must be done to show these barbarians that 
we, too, have rights," ^^ — which he had previously spoken 
to Weiner and Townsley. It is clear that John Brown did 
reveal to the council the general outline of his plan. ^^ "It 
was now and here resolved that they, their aiders and abettors, 
who sought to kill our suffering people, should themselves be 
killed, and in such manner as should be likely to cause a re- 
straining fear," declares John Brown, Jr., and Salmon Brown 
testifies : 

"The general purport of our intentions — some radical retalia- 
tory measure — some killing — was well understood by the whole 
camp. You never heard such cheering as they gave us when we 
started out.^^ They were wild with excitement and enthusiasm. 
The principal man — the leader — in the council that resolved on 
the necessity of Pottawatomie, — was H. H. Williams: I do not 
know that I ought to tell this since he himself has not; but it is the 
fact. He was wholly determined that the thing must be done. He 
knew all those men on the Pottawatomie, better than any of us. 
He lived among them — was familiar with all their characters. He 
was now the most active of us all in urging this step. And not fif- 
teen minutes before we left to go to Pottawatomie I saw him, my- 
self, write out a list of the men who were to be killed and hand it to 
father. This was on the crest of the wave of enthusiasm. Williams 
was a little cautious, I always thought, even then. He was a first- 
rate fellow; but he was too smart, even in enthusiasm, to go into a 
thing like that, personally, when he could get someone else to do it 
for him. Then, when it was all over, and he found how the people 
down at home took it, he got scared. He had n't the backbone to 
stand by his own mind, against popular opinion, — he went back 
on his own radical measures, weakened, did not confess to his own 
share in their origin, and counselled peace. In fact, he got scared. 
Benjamin told me about this afterward. Williams wrote down the 
names of the men whom, he said, it was necessary to pick off to pre- 
vent the utter destruction of the whole community and handed the 
paper to father. We started back, thereupon, for the Pottawatomie 
country, which was the headquarters for the pro-slavery men, under 
Judge Cato, for that region, to pick off the designated men promi- 
nent in enforcing Border Ruffian laws."^'' 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 153 

About noon, John Brown selected for his party Henry 
Thompson, Theodore Welner, and four sons, Owen, Frederick, 
Salmon and OHver. In order to secure the use of his wagon, 
John Brown went to James Townsley, of the Pottawatomie 
Rifles, saying he had just heard trouble was expected on the 
Pottawatomie. He asked Townsley whether he could not take 
his team of grays and convey him with his sons back to Pot- 
tawatomie. Townsley consented, and the departure was fixed 
for two o'clock. ^^ The interim was devoted to the sharpen- 
ing of some of the odd-shaped cutlasses, the gift of General 
Lucius V. Bierce, of Akron, Ohio, that John Brown had brought 
West with him, for use in border warfare. ^^ John Brown, 
Jr., and Jason devoted themselves to the cutlasses, while a 
boy. Bain Fuller, turned the grindstone; but Jason insists 
that he had no idea of the real purpose of the expedition. ^^ 
Seeing the grinding operation, George Grant remarked to 
Frederick Brown: "That looks like business." "Yes," was 
the reply, "it does." When Grant asked whether he might 
not also ride back in Townsley's wagon, Frederick Brown 
consulted his father, only to return and report: "Father says 
you had better not come." 2° Bain Fuller, whose father had 
received John Brown's word that the boy should not get into 
trouble, was told to go home and to be sure to have witnesses 
as to his whereabouts for that night. ^^ Before Townsley's 
horses were ready and the cutlasses had received their edge, 
a feeling came over some of the men in the camp that the 
radical leader of the returning party might not act with 
sufficient discretion. One of them went to John Brown, so 
relates Judge James Hanway, and urged "caution." At this. 
Brown, who was packing up his camp fixtures, instantly stood 
erect and said: "Caution, caution, sir. I am eternally tired 
of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word 
of cowardice." 22 In the Kansas Monthly, for January, 1880, 
Judge Hanway wrote: "I ventured to approach one of the 
eight, and from him learned the program contemplated. In 
fact, I received an invitation to be one of the party, and 
being unwilling to consent before I learned the object, I 
was made acquainted with the object of the expedition; it 
shocked me." 

With the shouts of their comrades in their ears, the party 



154 JOHN BROWN 

set off in Townsley's wagon, except Weiner, who, riding his 
pony, gave them mounted escort as they retraced their way 
over the road they had traversed in such haste and excite- 
ment the night before. "As we turned back with the evil 
news [the fate of Lawrence] and had just got to the top of 
the hill south of the Wakarusa — the high ridge," says Salmon 
Brown, "a man named Gardner came to us with the news of 
the assault upon Senator Sumner of Bully Brooks,* — carry- 
ing the message hidden in his boot. At that blow the men 
went crazy — crazy. It seemed to be the finishing, decisive 
touch." Two men have affirmed that they met the expedition 
as it took its way toward what is now the little hamlet called 
Lane. Captain J. M. Anthony and a squad of Free State men 
encountered it near the residence of Ottawa Jones, and in 
their surprise at seeing fighting men returning when Lawrence 
was in distress, asked eagerly whither the men in the lumber 
wagon were bound. "They gave us," says Captain Anthony, 
"no answer except that they were going to attend to very ur- 
gent business and would be right back to join us on the march 
i to Lawrence." ^3 Near sundown, between Pottawatomie and 
Middle Creek, James Blood descried a wagon with a mounted 
man alongside, going toward Pottawatomie Creek. As he 
neared the wagon, John Brown rose in it and cried "Halt!" 
Blood remembered afterwards that the men in the wagon 
were armed with rifles, revolvers, knives and General Bierce's 
short heavy broadswords, for John Brown had given him one 
"^of these cutlasses when in Lawrence during the Wakarusa 
excitement. Brown, Blood found to be very indignant that 
Lawrence had been sacked without a shot being fired in its 
behalf. He denounced the leading Free State men as cowards 
or worse. "His manner," wrote Colonel Blood twenty-three 
years later, "was wild and frenzied, and the whole party 
watched with excited eagerness every word or motion of the 
old man. Finally, as I left them, he requested me not to 
mention the fact that I had met them, as they were on a secret 
expedition and did not want anyone to know that they were 
in the neighborhood."" 

That night, says Townsley, they "drove down to the edge 

* Congressman Brooks, of South Carolina, assaulted Senator Sumner in the 
Senate on May 22, 1S56, striking him on the head with a heavy cane. 



y 

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 155 

of the timber between two deep ravines, and camped about 
one mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing."" And there, 
Townsley asserts, John Brown told him for the first time 
of his bloodthirsty intentions, and refused to let him go >^ 
when he, Townsley, asked to be allowed to take his team 
and return home. All the next day, Saturday, the 24th, the 
little company literally lay on their arms in their open-air 
camp. For it was in the night that John Brown proposed to 
strike his blow, in order, Salmon Brown declares, that they 
might be sure to catch their quarry in their lairs. "Maybe," 
he adds, "Father took into consideration the terrifying ef- 
fect of such a means." Certainly, the hour suited the deed. 
The chase was trapped; save in one instance. Henry Sher- 
man, whose absence in pursuit of wandering cattle saved 
his life for another year, was one of three brothers, German 
in origin, and therefore known in the community as Dutch 
Bill, Dutch Henry and Dutch Pete. Border Ruffians by their 
sympathies and their instincts, their character is painted 
black enough by their Free Soil neighbors, who credited them 
with no honest ways of life, generally thought of them as 
ignorant and drunken, living at the crossing which bore the 
name of Dutch Henry, and subsisting by making money out 
of the emigrants or "lifting" a horse or a cow or two from the 
caravans as they came by. For this well-known ford was the 
point where the much-used road from Fort Scott to the Santa 
Fe trail and the old California road, or road to Oregon, used 
by emigrants going still further west, crossed the Pottawato- 
mie. Weiner's store near-by also drew patronage from these 
emigrant parties, and to it the Shermans and their pro-slavery 
neighbors had carried their drunken threats of extermination 
of the Abolitionists that had so stirred Weiner, Townsley 
and Bondi. Indeed, the two diverse elements had even come 
to blows, as Henry Thompson testifies. For several midwinter 
months he had helped Weiner to keep his store. Returning 
to it on Christmas Day, he found Weiner with an axe handle 
beating "Dutch Bill" Sherman, who fled on the approach 
of Thompson. "He attacked me in my own store," said 
Weiner by way of explanation. ^^ "They were brutes and 
bullies," declares one woman who resided at Osawatomie 
at this time, in speaking of the murdered men, and this 



156 JOHN BROWN 

seems to sum up their character accurately, if the adjective 
"ignorant" be added." 

The men of the Doyle family, father and two sons, were 
low "poor whites" from Tennessee, who, while sympathizing 
with the pro-slavery element, w^ent to Kansas because, ac- 
cording to Mrs. Doyle, they had found that slavery was 
"ruinous to white labor." ^s Mrs. Doyle herself was illiterate, 
and it is altogether likely that the men were. The family 
seems to have been very intimate with "Dutch Bill," who 
was one of the oldest settlers in the region, and considerably 
under his influence. Allen Wilkinson, on the other hand, 
was a man of some education; he was a member of the pro- 
slavery Legislature, and returned from its meetings at the 
Shawnee Mission more than ever a pro-slavery man. George 
W. Grant and his brother, Henry Grant, have testified that 
Wilkinson was a dangerous man, whom everybody feared; 
"the most evil looking man" they ever saw, "who fearfully 
abused a nice wife, well liked by the neighbors." -^ Wilkin- 
son, too, was free with his threats to the Free Soil settlers, 
urging them to "clear out" and avoid trouble. All of them 
were friendly with the Missourians who passed by, acting 
as their guides and advisers. There is also no doubt that 
when the Browns entered the camp of Buford's men as sur- 
veyors, they found these obnoxious pro-slavery neighbors on 
good terms with the invaders.^'* 

Not unnaturally, a different character was assigned after 
their murders to these men by the pro-slavery leaders. Thus, 
Henry Clay Pate, correspondent of the St. Louis Republi- 
can and leader of a pro-slavery company, testified that " they 
had no fault as quiet citizens but being in favor of slavery. 
That was the crime for which they forfeited their lives." ^^ 
The Rev. Martin White insisted to the pro-slavery Legisla- 
ture that Wilkinson was a noble man, whose "greatest crime " 
was that "he was a member of the first legislature in this 
territory," w^hich crime. White added, was the reason for 
his death. ^2 Congressman Oliver, the Democratic member 
of the Howard Committee, was satisfied, after taking testi- 
mony in the case of the murders, that Wilkinson was a quiet, 
inoffensive man. "My husband was a quiet man, and was 
not engaged in arresting or disturbing anybody. He took no 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 157 

active part in the pro-slavery cause, so as to aggravate the 
Abolitionists, but he was a pro-slavery man," was Mrs. Wil- 
kinson's characterization of her husband. ^^ The Kansas 
Weekly Herald of Leavenworth affirmed on June 7, 1856, that 
Wilkinson was a member of the Legislature, and that the other 
victims were "plain, honest, peaceable farming settlers." 
But the weight of evidence is too strong on the other side to 
make it possible to accept this characterization as correct. 
Excepting perhaps Wilkinson, the others were of the rough, 
brutal, disorderly element to be found in every frontier out- 
post, whether it be mining camp or farmers' settlement. 

During the morning of Saturday, the 24th, when John 
Brown's party of avengers lay in the timber between two 
deep ravines a mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing, Towns- 
ley, so he asserts, did his best to dissuade the leader and his 
sons from carrying out their plans, and to this end "talked 
a good deal." But Brown insisted always that it had be- 
come necessary "to strike terror into the hearts of the pro-*^ 
slavery people." Townsley even avers that the day's delay 
was due to his protests and his refusal to guide the company 
up to the forks of Mosquito Creek, some five or six miles 
above, and point out where pro-slavery men resided, so that 
Brown's men might sweep the creek of them as they came 
down. This Salmon Brown declares to be nonsense, a plan 
that "never was dreamed of." Moreover, Weiner, the store- 
keeper, might well have been as efficient a guide as Townsley, 
since he had been in Kansas longer and naturally had a 
wider acquaintance. The delay, too, is not hard to explain. 
The men must have been fairly exhausted when they en- 
camped in the timber, since they had marched all the previous 
night and, after working all the morning, had driven back 
over rough roads between two o'clock and sundown. To 
postpone the raid in order to obtain necessary sleep was most 
natural. Then, since night-time was deemed necessary to 
trap the prey sought, the day in camp was inevitable. But 
on this fateful day the sun finally sank into the prairies, and 
long before it disappeared, Townsley had resigned himself to 
his situation sufficiently to decide that he would go along, 
albeit unwillingly, as he declares. 

As for the rest, aside from Weiner, whom Salmon Brown 



158 JOHN BROWN 

describes as a "big, savage, bloodthirsty Austrian" who 
" could not be kept out of any accessible fight," ^* they needed 
no persuasion. Whether it was the compelling personality of 
their father, whose dominating manner and will-power later 
led men willingly to their death under circumstances against 
which their common sense revolted, or whether there was in 
the sons a sufficient touch of an inherited mental disturb- 
ance to make them less than rational in their reasoning, there 
was no attempt at a filial revolt against a parental decision, 
even when they went unwillingly. Two sons, at least, Freder- 
ick and Oliver, kept their hands unstained, ^^ and probably 
protested, only to submit and accompany their father and 
imperious commander as w^itnesses of the horrors of that 
night, sharing the guilt of all in the eyes of the law. The other 
brothers, then unaccustomed to the sight of blood, who had 
hitherto led the untroubled lives of plain American citizens, 
were exalted or nerved now to deeds at which a trained pro- 
fessional soldier might easily and creditably shrink. The 
sword of Gideon was unsheathed. About the hour of ten 
o'clock the party, armed with swords, revolvers and rifles, 
proceeded in a northerly direction, "crossing Mosquito Creek 
above the residence of the Doyles." Soon after crossing the 
creek, some one of the party knocked at the door of a cabin. 
There was no reply, but from within came the sound of a 
gun rammed through the chinks of the cabin walls. It saved 
the owner's life, for, relates Salmon Brown, "at that we all 
scattered. We did not disturb that man. With some candle 
wicking soaked in coal oil to light and throw inside, so that 
we could see within while he could not see outside, we would 
have managed it. But we had none. It was a method much 
used later." 

Thence it was but a short distance to the ill-fated Doyles'. 
To add to the natural terrors of the night and of the dark 
design, there came to meet them, at the very threshold of the 
house, two dogs — "very savage bull dogs." One of these sen- 
tinels Townsley claims to have helped despatch, for though, 
according to his own story, an unwilling abettor under com- 
pulsion, he carried one of the deadly Bierce swords and was 
thus an armed prisoner. It was about eleven o'clock, Mrs. 
Doyle testified, that her family heard a knock. ^^ 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 159 

"My husband got up and went to the door. Those outside in- 
quired for Mr. Wilkson [Wilkinson] and where he lived. My hus- 
band told them that he would tell them. Mr. Doyle, my husband, 
opened the door, and several came into the house, and said that they 
were from the army. My husband was a pro-slavery man. They 
told my husband that he and the boys must surrender, they were 
their prisoners. These men were armed with pistols and large knives. 
They first took my husband out of the house, then they took two 
of my sons — the two oldest ones, William and Drury — out, and 
then took my husband and these two boys, William and Drury, 
away. My son John was spared, because I asked them in tears to 
spare him. In a short time afterward I heard the report of pistols/V 

Thus, without warning or notice, her husband and two sons 
were torn from her and despatched. "When we entered the 
Doyle cabin," says Salmon Brown, "Mrs. Doyle stormed, 
raved at her men, after we had taken them prisoners. ' Haven't 
I told you what you were going to get for the course you have 
been taking?' she screamed. 'Hush, mother, hush,' replied 
her husband." Her two boys, twenty-two and twenty years 
of age, were granted, like her husband, no time to make their^ 
peace, no time to ask forgiveness of their sins. Townsley af- 
firms that he, Frederick Brown and Weiner were at some dis- 
tance from the house, but near enough to cry out in protest 
if he had wished to, and near enough to see that John Brown 
"drew his revolver and shot old man Doyle in the forehead,.^/ 
and Brown's two younger sons immediately fell upon the 
younger Doyles with their short two-edged swords." But in 
this, according to Salmon Brown, Townsley was mistaken, 
just as he erred in insisting that Watson Brown, then at 
North Elba, was present and playing the part of executioner. 
"Not one of the Doyles ran a single step," is Salmon's posi- 
tive statement. "They fell where they stood. I think that 
the father Doyle w^as not the first of the three to be killed." 

As for John Brown's own part, he killed none of them with » 
his own hand; to this both Henry Thompson and Salmon 
Browm bear positive witness, as did John Brown himself. 
But Mrs. Doyle did hear one shot at least. Salmon Brown 
will not positively state that his father fired it, but admits ^ 
that no one else in the party pulled a trigger. He is at a loss 
to explain why the shot was fired. "It did no possible good, 
as a bullet, for Doyle had long been stone dead." And his 



i6o JOHN BROWN 

father could therefore truthfully say that he had raised his 
hand against no living man. "I was three hundred yards 
away when the shot was fired," is Henry Thompson's state- 
ment. "Those who were on the spot told me that it was done 
^, after Doyle was dead." Even with Oliver and Frederick, a 
younger and older son, taking no part, the killings lasted but 
a moment. Doyle and his two sons in an instant lay lifeless, 
— a Free State warning to the pro-slavery forces that it was 
to be a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, henceforth, so far 
as one wing of the Free State party was concerned. If pro- 
slavery men had not been made to die when Lawrence fell, 
here were three to even up the score. " My husband, and two 
boys, my sons," testified the simple, untutored, pitiful Ma- 
hala Doyle, "did not come back any more. I went out next 
morning in search of them, and found my husband and Wil- 
liam, my son, lying dead in the road near together, about 
two hundred yards from the house. My other son I did not 
see any more until the day he was buried. I was so much 
overcome that I went into the house. They were buried the 
next day. On the day of the burying I saw the dead body of 
Drury. Fear of myself and the remaining children induced 
me to leave the home where we had been living. We had 
improved our claim a little. I left all and went to the State 
of Missouri." 

"I found my father and one brother, William, lying dead 
in the road, about two hundred yards from the house," tes- 
tified John Doyle." "I saw my other brother lying dead on 
the ground, about one hundred and fifty yards from the 
house, in the grass, near a ravine; his fingers were cut off, 
and his arms were cut ofi^; his head was cut open; there was a 
hole in his breast. William's head was cut open, and a hole 
was in his jaw, as though it was made by a knife, and a hole 
was also in his side. My father was shot in the forehead and 
stabbed in the breast." "Owen and another killed the Doyles," 
says Salmon Brown, and by a process of elimination it is 
apparent that the other could only have been himself. "It is 
not true," Townsley testifies, "that there was any intentional 
mutilation of the bodies after they were killed. They were 
\ slain as quickly as possible and left, and whatever gashes 
1 they received were inflicted in the process of cutting them 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE i6i 

down with swords. I understand that the kilHng was done 
with these swords so as to avoid alarming the neighborhood 
by the discharge of firearms." 

The next man to meet his fate at the hands of John Brown's 
merciless party was Wilkinson. The same procedure was 
adopted. Somewhere between the hours of midnight and day- 
break, "we were disturbed by the barking of the dog," Mrs. 
Wilkinson informed Congressman Oliver, under oath.^^ She 
continued : 

"I was sick with the measles, and woke up Mr. Wilkinson, and 
asked if he heard the noise and what it meant? He said it was only 
someone passing about, and soon after was again asleep. It was not 
long before the dog raged and barked furiously, awakening me once 
more; pretty soon I heard footsteps as of men approaching; saw 
one pass by the window, and some one knocked at the door. I asked, 
who is that? No one answered. I awoke my husband, who asked, 
who is that? Someone replied, 'I want you to tell me the way to 
Dutch Henry's.' He commenced to tell them, and they said to him, 
' Come out and show us.' He wanted to go, but I would not let him ; 
he then told them it was difficult to find his clothes, and could tell 
them as well without going out of doors. The men out of doors, 
after that, stepped back, and I thought I could hear them whisper- 
ing; but they immediately returned, and, as they approached, one 
of them asked of my husband, 'Are you a northern armist?' He 
said, 'I am!' I understood the answer to mean that my husband 
was opposed to the northern or freesoil party. I cannot say that I 
understood the question. My husband was a pro-slavery man, and 
was a member of the territorial legislature held at Shawnee Mission. 
When my husband said 'I am,' one of them said, 'You are our pris- 
oner. Do you surrender?' He said, 'Gentlemen, I do.' They said, 
'open the door.' Mr. Wilkinson told them to wait till he made a 
light; and they replied, 'if you don't open it, we will open it for you.' 
He opened the door against my wishes, and four men came in, and 
my husband was told to put on his clothes, and they asked him if 
there were not more men about; they searched for arms, and took a 
gun and powder flask, all the weapon that was about the house. I 
begged them to let Mr. Wilkinson stay with me, saying that I was 
sick and helpless, and could not stay by myself. My husband also 
asked them to let him stay with me until he could get som.eone to 
wait on me; told them that he would not run off, but would be there 
the next day, or whenever called for. The old man, who seemed to 
be in command, looked at me and then around at the children, and 
replied, 'You have neighbors.' I said, 'So I have, but the}^ are not 
here, and I cannot go for them.' The old man replied, 'it matters 
not.' I [he?] told him to get ready. My husband wanted to put on 



i62 JOHN BROWN 

his boots and get ready, so as to be protected from the damp and 
night air, but they would n't let him. They then took my husband 
away. One of them came back and took two saddles; I asked him 
what they were going to do with him, and he said, ' take him a pris- 
oner to the camp.' I wanted one of them to stay with me. He said 
he would, but 'they would not let him.' After they were gone, I 
thought I heard my husband's voice, in complaint, but do not know; 
went to the door, and all was still. Next morning Mr. Wilkinson 
was found about one hundred and fifty yards from the house in some 
dead brush. A lady who saw my husband's body, said that there 
was a gash in his head and in his side; others said that he was cut 
in the throat twice." 

"We divided our forces at Wilkinson's, I think, into two 
parties to go on separate errands," is Salmon Brown's testi- 
mony. "Henry Thompson and Weiner killed Wilkinson and 
Sherman. My party was not present when Wilkinson and 
Sherman were killed. Townsley could not have been present 
at each crisis, as he implies. No one else was." Yet Townsley 
attributes Wilkinson's murder to " one of the younger Browns " 
and adds: "After he was killed his body was dragged to one 
side and left." Henry Thompson states that he was not pre- 
sent when the Doyles were killed, but is silent as to the fate 
of Wilkinson and Sherman. 

The "old man" to whom Mrs. Wilkinson's pleading for 
her husband's life had "mattered not" was still unplacated 
when Wilkinson's dead body lay in the brush. The next and 
last man to die was William Sherman. "We then crossed the 
Pottawatomie and came to the house of Henry Sherman," 
is Townsley's tale. "Here John Brown and tke party, except- 
ing Frederick Brown, Weiner and myself, who were left out- 
side a short distance from the door, went into the house and 
brought out one or two persons, talked with them some, and 
then took them in again. They afterward brought out William 
Sherman, Dutch Henry's brother, marched him down into 
the Pottawatomie Creek, where he was slain with swords 
by Brown's two youngest sons and left lying in the creek." 
But Townsley was again wrong as to his details, for the house 
was not Sherman's, but that of James Harris, who promptly 
made affidavit thereto and thus related what befell : ^^ 

"On last Sunday morning, about two o'clock, (the 25th of May 
last,) whilst my wife and child and myself were in bed in the house 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 163 

where we lived, we were aroused by a company of men who said 
they belonged to the northern army, and who were each armed 
with a sabre and two revolvers, two of whom I recognized, namely, a 
Mr. Brown, whose given name I do not remember, commonly known 
by the appellation of 'old man Brown,' and his son, Owen Brown. 
They came in the house and approached the bedside where we were 
lying, and ordered us, together with three other men who were in 
the same house with me, to surrender; that the northern army was 
upon us, and it would be no use for us to resist. The names of these 
other three men who were then in my house with me are, William 
Sherman, John S. Whiteman, the other man I did not know. They 
were stopping with me that night. They had bought a cow from 
Henry Sherman, and intended to go home the next morning. When 
they [the Browns] came up to the bed, some had drawn sabres in 
their hands, and some revolvers. They then took into their pos- 
session two rifles and a Bowie knife, which I had there in the room 
— there was but one room in my house — and afterward ransacked 
the whole establishment in search of ammunition. They then took 
one of these three men, who were staying in my house, out. (This 
was the man whose name I did not know.) He came back. They 
then took me out, and asked me if there were any more men about 
the place. I told them there were not. They searched the place, 
but found none others but we four. They asked me where Henry 
Sherman was. Henry Sherman was a brother to William Sherman. 
I told them that he was out on the plains in search of some cattle 
which he had lost. They asked if I had ever taken any hand in aid- 
ing pro-slavery men in coming to the Territory of Kansas, or had 
ever taken any hand in the last troubles at Lawrence, and asked 
me whether I had ever done the free State party any harm or ever 
intended to do that party any harm ; they asked me what made me 
live at such a place. I then answered that I could get higher wages 
there than anywhere else. They asked me if there were any bridles 
or saddles about the premises. I told them there was one saddle, 
which they took, and they also took possession of Henry Sherman's 
horse, which I had at my place, and made me saddle him. They 
then said if I would answer no to all questions which they had asked 
me, they would let [me?] loose. Old Mr. Brown and his son then 
went into the house with me. The other three men, Mr. William 
Sherman, Mr. Whiteman, and the stranger were in the house all 
this time. After old man Brown and his son went into the house with 
me, old man Brown asked Mr. Sherman to go out with him, and 
Mr. Sherman then went out with old Mr. Brown, and another man 
came into the house in Brown's place. I heard nothing more for 
about fifteen minutes. Two of the northern army, as they styled 
themselves, stayed on with us until we heard a cap burst, and then 
these two men left. That morning about ten o'clock I found Wil- 
liam Sherman dead in the creek near my house. I was looking for 
Mr. Sherman, as he had not come back, I thought he had been mur- 



1 64 JOHN BROWN 

dered. I took Mr. William Sherman out of the creek and examined 
him. Mr. Whiteman was with me. Sherman's skull was split open 
in two places and some of his brains was washed out by the water. 
A large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off ex- 
cept a little piece of skin on one side. We buried him." 

Here Thompson and Weiner were again the executioners, 
according to Salmon Brown. "Neither of the younger sons, 
nor Owen, was present when William Sherman was killed." 
Then, at last, John Brown was satisfied. He had told Towns- 
ley that he must take matters into his own hands "for the 
protection of the Free State settlers; that it was better that 
a score of bad men should die than that one man who came 
here to make Kansas a Free State should be driven out." 
The rising Sabbath sun shone on five mutilated bodies, their 
very starkness. In their executioner's eyes, a protection to the 
Free State settlers for many miles around. The bloody night's 
work was over. Confusion now had made his masterpiece. 

Three and one half years later, when in jail and under 
sentence of death, John Brown received the following letter 
purporting to come from Mahala Doyle. Mrs. Doyle could 
not write, and the letter is obviously, in its style, beyond her 
homely powers of expression, though she may have signed It, 
and there Is nothing in it she might not have said in her own 
way: 

Chattanooga, Tennessee Nov. 20th, 1859/" 
John Brown: — Sir, — Altho' vengence is not mine I confess 
that I do feel gratified, to hear that you were stopped in your fiend- 
ish career at Harper's Ferry, with the loss of your two sons, you 
can now appreciate my distress in Kansas, when you then & there 
entered my house at midnight and arrested my Husband and two 
boys, and took them out of the yard and in cold blood shot them 
dead in my hearing, you cant say you done it to free slaves, we had 
none and never expected to own one, but has only made me a poor 
disconsolate widow with helpless children, while I feel for your 
folly I do hope & trust that you will meet your just reward. O how 
it pained my heart to hear the dying groans of my Husband & chil- 
dren, if this scrawl gives you any consolation you are welcome to it 

Mahala Doyle. 

N. B. My son John Doyle whose life I beged of you Is now grown 
up and is very desirous to be at Charlestown on the day of your 
execution, would certainly be there if his means would permit it 
that he might adjust the rope around your neck if Gov. Wise would 
permit it. M. Doyle. . 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 165 

Townsley asserts that Brown was intent upon killing 
George Wilson, Probate Judge of Anderson County, whom he 
hoped to find at Sherman's, for the reason that he had been 
warning Free State men to leave the Territory. Townsley 
claimed to have received such a notice himself. But Salmon 
Brown and Henry Thompson deny positively that Wilson 
was on the proscribed list. Be this as it may, there was no 
further search for any one, and the blood-stained party w^ent 
back to the camping-place in the timber between the two deep 
ravines, their swords, "unmannerly breached vvith gore," 
being first washed in Pottawatomie Creek. Just before day- 
light, Townsley avers, Owen Brown came to him and said, 
"There shall be no more such work as that." In the after- 
noon the eight men started back to rejoin the Pottawatomie 
company under John Brown, Jr. They found it about mid- 
night, encamped near Ottawa Jones's farm, where, as we have 
seen, the news of their awful deed had already preceded 
them, and where John Brown, Jr., had resigned the cap- 
taincy of the company. As soon as Jason Brown, whose 
hatred of blood-letting had deprived him of his father's con- 
fidence when violent deeds were under way, met his father 
face to face, he encountered him tremblingly, — for this was 
the "worst shock" that ever came to him in his life.^^ "Did 
you," he demanded of his father, "have anything to do with 
the killing of those men on the Pottawatomie?" "I did not 
do it," the father replied, "but I approved of it." "I spoke 
to him as I then felt about it," continues Jason; "I did not 
fully understand the cause of it then, and told him I was very 
sorry the act had been done. I said to him : ' I think it was an 
uncalled for, wicked act.' He said: 'God is my judge. It was 
absolutely necessary as a measure of self-defence, and for 
the defence of others.' I cannot give his exact language, but 
this was the purport of it. It seemed to hurt his feelings that 
I felt so about it. He soon after left us, and John and I re- 
turned to Osawatomie." Not, however, until he had sought 
additional information. He inquired of his brother Frederick 
if he knew who the murderers were. "Yes I do, but I can't 
tell you." " Did you kill any of them with your own hands?" 
"No; when I came to see what manner of work it was, I 
could not do it." The tears rolled down Frederick's face as he 



i66 JOHN BROWN 

spoke, Jason reports; and this eye-witness of the tragedy seems 
never to have learned to approve of it. In this he was in marked 
contrast to Townsley, for, unwilling participant as he was, he 
stated that after the event he became convinced that it resulted 
in good to the Free State settlers on Pottawatomie Creek. 

Jason and John Brown, Jr., felt too badly to join forces 
with their father. The Pottawatomie Company started for 
home under H. H. Williams in a very different frame of mind 
toward the men they had so gayly cheered out of camp but 
three days before, either because of a sudden repentance, or 
of their having expected a stand-up fight instead of a slaugh- 
ter, or because the deed in its reality seemed so much worse 
than in anticipation that those in the secret joined the others 
in their detestation o^ it. John Brown and his fellow execu- 
tioners fell behind the company, after crossing Middle Creek, 
and struck off by themselves in the direction of Jason's and 
the younger John's homes. Jason and John headed not for 
their cabins but for Osawatomie. Already the roads were 
lined with men, so Jason narrates, ^^ from Palmyra to Osa- 
watomie, looking for the Browns. The brothers got to the 
Adair cabin, where both their wives had taken refuge during 
their absence, at about 9 p. m. Adair came to the door with 
his gun. "Who's there?" said he. "John and I." "Can't 
keep you here. Our lives are threatened. Every moment we 
expect to have our house burned over our heads." To their 
entreaties, he only repeated: "I cannot keep you." "Here 
are we two alone," pleaded Jason. "We have eaten nothing 
all day. Let us lie on your floor until morning — in your 
out-house — anywhere." Then Mrs. Adair came and asked, 
"Did you have anything to do with the murders on the 
Pottawatomie?" "I did not," said Jason. "And John had 
no action in it." "Then," said Mrs. Adair, "you may stay. 
But we risk our lives in keeping you." They gave the two 
a mattress on the floor beside the Adairs' bed, and the four 
talked till midnight, Jason telling all he knew of the affair. 
John lay groaning. In the middle of the night John spoke to 
his Aunt Florilla. " I feel that I am going insane," said he, and 
in the morning he was insane. Jason had slept after a while, 
but John could not. His mind was gone, yet not so far gone 
but that he was able to understand and to acquiesce when 










? 




SALMON BROWN 



JOHN iJRoWN, JR. 




JASON KROWN 







^4 



0\\P\ liROWN 



FOUR OF JOHN BROWN'S SONS 
In later years 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 167 

Jason advised him to hide, and to act upon it. About two or 
three o'clock that same night, a knock had been heard at the 
door. "Who's there?" called out Adair. "Owen." "Getaway, 
get away as quick as you can! You endanger our lives." Adair 
would not parley or let him in. "You are a vile murderer, 
a marked man!" said he." "I intend to be a marked man!" 
shouted Owen, and rode away — on one of the murdered 
men's horses. 

The Rev. Mr. Adair was not the only one to feel outraged 
at first by the murders committed by his relatives. John 
T. Grant and Judge Han way, two of the best Free State set- 
tlers in that region, talked the matter over, so J. G. Grant, a 
son of the former, recollects," and agreed that John Brown's 
action was inexcusable. He had taken, they said, the mo- 
ment when the families of all the men who had gone to the 
rescue of Lawrence were helpless, to commit a crime which 
invited and provoked a vengeful attack upon the settlement. 
Was that sane or decent, they asked? And was it excusable 
for ihim, after the murder, to march away from the seat 
of danger and rejoin the company at Ottawa Jones's, thus 
leaving the women and children more than ever helpless? 
Not until some time afterwards did Adair and Hanway, like 
Townsley, come around to an approval of the deed as they 
saw it in retrospect. "Last Sunday or Monday," wrote on 
May 31, 1856, James H. Carruth, another Osawatomie Free 
State settler of character, to the Watertown, New York, i?e- 
former,'^^"five pro-slavery men were killed seven or eight miles 
from here. It is said that they had threatened to hang another 
pro-slavery man who had sold provisions to the free state 
men unless he left the territory in a few hours, and that one 
of them had been around the neighborhood brandishing his 
bowie-knife and threatening to kill people. It was murder, 
nevertheless, and the free-state men here cooperate with the 
pro-slavery men in endeavoring to arrest the murderers." 
"Threatened and ordered to leave in given time under pen- 
alty of death, some few persons committed the horrid murders 
at Pottawatomie 10 miles above," was the way O. C. Brown 
described the crime on June 24, 1856, in a letter to a friend. ^^ 
The writer was no relative of the murderers, but a staunch 
Free State man and a leader at Osawatomie. H. L. Jones, 



1 68 JOHN BROWN 

another settler, declares that the act was generally believed 
by Free State men to be warranted at the time, but that 
"poHcy dictated that the deed should be disavowed as having 
general disapproval." ^^ George Thompson, a settler who lived 
four miles northeast of the Brown claims, testified, in 1894, 
that "at the time of the executions of the Doyles, Wilkinson 
and Sherman, with many of my neighbors I did not approve 
the act, but since, on more fully understanding the circum- 
stances, I believe the act to have been wise and justifiable." ^* 
Three days after the murders, a public meeting was held 
in Osawatomie, of which C. H. Price was chairman and H. H. 
Williams secretary. It adopted unanimously the following 
emphatic resolutions: 

"Whereas, An outrage of the darkest and foulest nature has been 
committed in our midst by some midnight assassins unknown, who 
have taken five of our citizens at the hour of midnight from their 
homes and families, and murdered and mangled them in the most 
awful manner; to prevent a repetition of these deeds, we deem it 
necessary to adopt some measures for our mutual protection and to 
aid and assist in bringing these desperadoes to justice. Under these 
circumstances we propose to act up to the following resolutions: 

" Resolved, That we will from this time lay aside all sectional 
and political feelings and act together as men of reason and common 
sense, determined to oppose all men who are so ultra in their views 
as to denounce men of opposite opinion. 

" Resolved, That we will repudiate and discountenance all organ- 
ized bands of men who leave their homes for the avowed purpose of 
exciting others to acts of violence, believing it to be the duty of all 
good disposed citizens to stay at home during these exciting times 
and protect and if possible restore the peace and harmony of the 
neighborhood ; furthermore we will discountenance all armed bodies 
of men who may come amongst us from any other part of the Ter- 
ritory or from the States unless said parties shall come under the 
authority of the United States. 

" Resolved, That we pledge ourselves, individually and collectively, 
to prevent a recurrence of a similar tragedy and to ferret out and 
hand over to the criminal authorities the perpetrators for punishment. 

C. H. Price, President 
R. Golding, Chairman 
R. Gilpatrick 
"H. H. Williams* W. C. McDow \ Committee" 

Secretary S. V. Vandaman 

A. Castele 
John Blunt 

, * If Salmon Brown's memory of H. H. Williams's instigation of the murders 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 169 

The Kansas Weekly Herald of Leavenworth, on June 14, in 
printing these resolutions/^ says: "The outlaws that are now 
prowling about over the country and murdering harmless and-- 
innocent men, it will be seen, have been denounced publicly by 
persons of their own political opinions. The President of the 
meeting is a Pro-slavery man, and the Secretary, Free State." 
"The respectability of the parties and the cruelties attending 
these murders have produced an extraordinary state of excite- 
ment in that portion of the territory, which has, heretofore, 
remained comparatively quiet," Governor Shannon reported 
on May 31, 1856, to President Pierce.^'' "The effect of this 
massacre on the inhabitants of the creeks was greatly to alarm 
both parties. The pro-slavery settlers almost entirely left at 
once and the Free State people were constantly fearful," was 
the statement of George W. and H. C. Grant, also sons of J. T. 
Grant." "No one can defend the action of the marshal's posse 
at Lawrence, in burning the hotel, destroying the printing- 
press and other outrages," wrote Major John Sedgwick, First 
Cavalry, from Fort Leavenworth, on June 11, 1856, seven- 
teen days after the Pottawatomie massacre, and just eight 
years before he gave his life for the LTnion as a distinguished 
major-general of volunteers In the battle of Spottsylvania, 
"but no life was lost, no one was threatened or felt himself 
in danger. In retaliation for this act, inoffensive citizens have 
been plundered, their houses robbed and burned, and five 
men were taken out of their beds, their throats cut, their ears 
cut off, their persons gashed more horribly than our savages 
have ever done. I sincerely think that most of the atrocities 
have been committed by the free-soil party, but I cannot think 
that they countenance such acts — that is, the respectable 
class." ^2 

If Major Sedgwick was correct in his estimate of the atti- 
tude of the Free State men toward midnight assassination, 
at the hour he wrote, it is undeniable that as time passed, 
opinions about Brown's actions began to change. "I never 
had much doubt that Capt. Brown was the author of the blow 
at Pottawatomie, for the reason that he was the only man 
who comprehended the situation, and saw the absolute neces- 

is correct, his serving at this settler's meeting convicts Williams of almost incred- 
ible hypocrisy and cowardice. 



170 JOHN BROWN 

sity of some such blow and had the nerve to strike it," wrote 
Governor Charles Robinson, Februarys, 1878, nearly two years 
before Townsley's confession was published. ^^ Judge Han- 
way, as we have already seen, altered his position radically, 
and in the following statement of February i, 1878, accurately 
summarizes the progress of public opinion in the neighborhood 
of the crime: 

". . . So far as public opinion in the neighborhood, where the 
affair took place, is concerned, I believe I may state that the first 
news of the event produced such a shock that public opinion was 
considerably divided; but after the whole circumstances became 
known, there was a reaction in public opinion and the Free State 
settlers who had claims on the creek considered that Capt. Brown 
and his party of eight had performed a justifiable act, which saved 
their homes and dwellings from threatened raids of the proslavery 
party.'"' 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in his 'Cheerful Yester- 
days,' states: 

"In regard to the most extreme act of John Brown's Kansas 
career, the so-called 'Pottawatomie massacre' of May 24, 1856, I 
can testify that in September of that year, there appeared to be but 
one way of thinking among the Kansas Free State men. ... I 
heard of no one who did not approve of the act, and its beneficial 
effects were universally asserted — Governor Robinson himself fully 
endorsing it to me. . . ." ^^ 

How may the killings on the Pottawatomie, this terrible 
violation of the statute and the moral laws, be justified? This 
is the question which has confronted every student of John 
Brown's life since it was definitely established that Brown 
was, if not actually a principal in the crime, an accessory and 
an instigator. There have been advanced many excuses for 
the killings, and a number of them deserve careful scrutiny. 
That there may be times in a newly settled country when it 
becomes necessary for the conservative elements to take the 
law into their own hands, in the absence of proper judicial 
machinery, lest the community fall into a state of utter law- 
lessness and anarchy, has been admitted ever since lynch 
law brought order out of chaos in San Francisco in 1849. But 
it has similarly been recognized that even this wild justice, 
when set afoot, must follow a certain procedure; that commit- 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 171 

tees of safety or vigilance should be formed and a kind of 
drum-head trial be instituted for the purpose of giving the 
accused men some opportunity to be heard in their own de- 
fence. History shows, moreover, that lynch law should only 
be proclaimed and obeyed for the briefest of periods, lest the 
second state be worse than the first; and that, even w^hen in- 
stituted, public proceedings on the part of the self-appointed 
regulators are essential, both in order to make the punish- 
ments as deterrent as possible, and to persuade the commu- 
nity that it is justice, however rude, that is being dispensed. 
In Kansas in 1856 the situation was different from that of 
California in 1849-50, in that most of the existing lawless- 
ness had its origin largely in the national politics of the day. 
That there were the same rude and dangerous characters to be 
found on every frontier is proved by the recital of the crimes 
committed in Kansas prior to the Pottawatomie murders. In 
the case of Kansas, the high character of part of the emigra- 
tion was offset by the lawless character of the Border Rufifiians. 
Slavery itself tended to that overbearing lawlessness which 
is inevitable wherever the fate of a dark-colored people is 
placed unreservedly in the hands of whites. It was the spirit 
of intolerance and lawlessness bred by slavery which dictated 
the destruction of Lawrence and made the abuse of the ballot- 
boxes seem proper and justifiable. But, granting that there 
was friction full of grave possibilities between a handful of the 
pro-slavery settlers on the Pottawatomie and their Free Soil 
neighbors, it is by no means clear either that the conditions 
prior to the killings were so grave as to demand the establish- 
ment of martial law, or that they called for the installation 
of vigilance committees to inflict extreme penalties upon 
the desperadoes. Not a single person had been killed in the 
region around Osawatomie, either by the lawless characters 
or by armed representatives of the pro-slavery cause. The 
instances of brutality or murder narrated in the preceding 
chapters all took place miles to the north, in the vicinity 
of Lawrence or Leavenworth. Beyond doubt the publica- 
tion of these atrocities inflamed not only the Browns, but 
kindled the anger and curdled the blood of every Free Soil 
settler who read of them. Yet the companies that set forth 
from Osawatomie to Lawrence deemed it quite safe to leave 



172 JOHN BROWN 

the settlements to themselves, despite the character of the 
Shermans and the Doyles and certain occurrences that might 
well have given ground for uneasiness. 

What those occurrences were becomes of great importance, 
because many loose statements about them have been brought 
forward from time to time as affording ample justification 
for the Pottawatomie blood-letting. The most careful search 
for and weighing of many testimonies, contemporary and 
reminiscent, establishes in the neighborhood of Osawatomie 
only five definite pro-slavery offences, after hearsay recollec- 
tions and wholly unsubstantiated stories are eliminated. It 
seems to be established beyond doubt that Poindexter Manes, 
a Free Soil settler, was knocked down and beaten for having 
a New York Tribune in his pocket. ^^ Less well substantiated 
is the case of one Baker, a Vermonter, living on the Pottawato- 
mie, who was taken from his cabin and strung up to a tree, 
but who was cut down in time to save his life. There is no 
record of his assailants, nor can the time be accurately fixed 
beyond that it was in the month of April." To the Doyles 
and Shermans is attributed the frightening of a woman named 
Holmes, who was nearing confinement, by the brandishing 
of a knife and the demand that she reveal the whereabouts 
of the men of her family. It is variously stated that she died 
and that she "came near dying," in consequence.^^ Along the 
same line and more important is the statement that "Dutch 
Bill," in the absence of the men on their trip to Lawrence, 
entered the cabin of John T. Grant and attempted an assault 
upon the person of Mary Grant, his daughter. This story is 
the basis for the allegation that a messenger reached John 
Brown in the first night's camp, near Prairie City, and re- 
ported the attack upon Mary Grant, and that the persons of 
the women of his own family had been threatened. Fortu- 
nately, Mary Grant, as well as Mrs. John Brown, Jr., is still 
alive.* The latter states positively that the women of the 
settlement were never harmed. ^^ In this she is emphatically 
borne out by a contemporary declaration of Jason Brown in 
a letter to North Elba on June 28, 1856, a month after the 
killings: "No women have been injured yet; so far as I know. 
Some of the five pro-slavery men who were killed had threat- 

* Since the above was written, Mary Grant Brown has died. 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 173 

ened the lives of Free State men near them; and also to cut 
the throat of a young woman, a neighbor." ^o As Jason 
Brown's wife was with him in Kansas, it is only natural to 
suppose that if her safety and that of his sister-in-law had 
been in danger, he would have reported it. Salmon Brown 
affirms that : "The statement that women were in any way 
molested is entirely without foundation." Mary Grant, the 
young woman neighbor, whose throat was threatened at the 
time, a remarkably pretty and attractive young woman, who 
had never feared to go freely to Wilkinson's post-office and 
to meet there the Doyles and Shermans, told recently this 
story of her experience with "Dutch Bill," which experience 
is the sole basis for the fabrication that John Brown was 
recalled because Free State women were in danger: ^^ 

"Dutch Bill arrived at our house, one day, horribly drunk, with 
a whiskey bottle with a corncob stopper, and an immense butcher 
knife in his belt. Mr. Grant, my father, was sick in bed, but when 
they told him that Bill Sherman was coming, in that state, he said: 
'Put my shot gun beside the bed.' There was also a neighbor pre- 
sent, who was armed. 'Old woman,' said Bill Sherman to my mo- 
ther, 'you and I are pretty good friends, but damn your daughter. 
I'll drink her heart's blood.' Yet my litde brother Charley, a mere 
boy of twelve or fourteen, succeeded in cajoling him away without 
violence." 

This story, says Mary Grant (Mrs. Mary E. Brown, of San 
Jose, California), Frederick Brown asked her for again and 
again, before the men marched to Lawrence. It is thus clear 
that the episode was in itself precisely what might happen 
in any isolated settlement which contained a drunken, worth- 
less settler, and that it was known to at least one Brown long 
before the sudden start for Lawrence. Jason Brown relates 
it in his letter in its proper proportions. Mrs. B. F. Jackson, 
a resident of Osawatomie at the time, also testifies ^^ that 
she never heard of any of the women of Osawatomie or 
Pottawatomie being troubled; yet news of attacks on them, 
had such occurred, must have travelled faster and made a 
more lasting impression upon the women of the frontier than 
anything else. In this connection it is interesting to note 
that although Gihon makes wholesale charges of rape against 
the Border Ruffians," Mrs. Charles Robinson, than whom the 



174 JOHN BROWN 

Ruffians have never had a severer critic, states that she knows 
of only a single case of criminal assault upon women during 
Kansas's troubled times. This case she records in her book 
as having occurred in August, 1856, or months after the Potta- 
watomie massacre. ^^ Similar favorable testimony is given by 
many other women, who were early settlers, when asked this 
specific question. In all the mass of material accumulated by 
the Kansas Historical Society, there is not a proved instance 
of Border Ruffian misconduct of this kind, unless we except 
that cited by Mrs. Robinson and the case of two sisters who 
lived five miles northwest of Lawrence, which is reported 
in the Tribune of June 9, 1856, on the not always reliable 
authority of James Redpath. What frontier settlement in a 
time of great excitement and unrest can show a better record? 
It must be noted, too, that whereas elsewhere there might 
have been a natural desire to suppress such facts, there were 
plenty of correspondents besides Redpath eager for such ter- 
rible happenings with which to blacken the case against the 
Border Ruffians and stir more Northerners to coming to the 
rescue of Free Kansas. 

A fifth Missouri outrage is directly brought home by the 
Grant family to Wilkinson, the Shermans and Doyles. This 
was the case of an old man named Morse, from Michigan, 
who had sold lead for bullets to the Browns. As George Grant 
narrates the story, 

"The next morning, after the company had started to go to 
Lawrence, a number of these proslavery men, Wilkinson, Doyle, 
his two sons, and William Sherman, known as 'Dutch Bill' — took 
a rope and were going to hang him [Morse] for selling the lead to 
the Free State men. They frightened the old man terribly; and 
finally told him he must leave the country before eleven o'clock, 
or they would hang him. They then left and went to the Shermans 
and went to drinking. About eleven o'clock a portion of them, half 
drunk, went back to Mr. Morse's and were going to kill him with 
an axe. His little boys — one was only nine years old — set up a 
violent crying, and begged for their father's life. They finally gave 
him until sundown to leave. He left everything and came at once 
to our house. He was nearly frightened to death. He came to our 
house carrying a blanket and leading his little boy by the hand. 
When night came he was so afraid that he would not stay in the 
house, but went out doors and slept on the prairie in the grass. 
For a few days he lay about in the brush, most of the time getting 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 175 

his meals at our house. He was then taken violently ill and died 
in a very short time. Dr. Gilpatrick attended him during his brief 
illness, and said that his death was directly caused by the fright 
and excitement of that terrible day when he was driven from his 
store." ^^ 

It will be noticed that the threats to Morse were made the 
day after the company had gone, or on Friday. It is per- 
fectly plain, therefore, that no news of this could have reached 
John Brown in camp near Prairie City before two o'clock of 
the same day, when he started back in Townsley's wagon, 
bent on the killings. Furthermore, there was no communica- 
tion between his party, as it lay in the timber between the 
ravines on the day of the killing, and the settlements. What- 
ever else may have actuated John Brown, it was not the at- 
tack upon the old man, Morse, of which he knew nothing, not 
even if a messenger bearing stones of threatened outrage on 
the Pottawatomie reached Brown on that one morning in 
camp when the cutlasses were being ground. 

This question of the alleged messenger bringing news of the 
threats against the Free Soil settlers is one that has deeply 
agitated the apologists for and critics of John Brown. The 
identity of this Mercury has never been established. He is 
variously thought to have been "Bondi or some one sent 
by him" — according to George Grant; or Weiner, accord- 
ing to O. C. Brown and John Hutchings. Townsley and Judge 
Hanway were sure that George Grant himself was the mes- 
senger, but as George Grant denies this and points out that 
he marched out with the Pottawatomie Rifles, this guess 
must be eliminated. H. H. Williams, on January 20, 1883, 
wrote to R. J. Hinton that he was the messenger. Unfortu- 
nately for this theory, his own contemporary letter to the 
Tribune, written within two months of the killings, proves 
that he went up toward Lawrence not as a messenger but as 
first lieutenant of the Pottawatomie Rifles, for he relates 
various incidents of the night march. Among others who af- 
firm that there was a messenger are John Brown, Jr., August 
Bondi, J. F. Legate, Samuel Anderson, Mary Grant, J. G. 
Grant and C. S. Adair; but none of them has a clue to his iden- 
tity. Salmon Brown, on the other hand, is positive that there 
was no messenger. So is Colonel James Blood. If there was 



176 JOHN BROWN 

a messenger who reached camp on Friday morning, he could 
only have had later news by two or three hours than the 
men of the Pottawatomie Rifles themselves brought, for they 
marched from the cross-roads near Osawatomie at six p. m., 
and were not much over six hours in camp the next day be- 
fore John Brown left on his way back. If the company had 
received tidings revealing grave danger to their women and 
children at home, it is incredible that they would not have 
returned at once with John Brown, to protect their families. 
Instead, they were content to remain idly in camp for two 
days. If Colonel Blood's narrative of meeting Townsley's 
wagon-load is true, it is again astonishing that John Brown 
never inquired of him what had happened during their twenty- 
four hours' absence. Had they done so. Blood could have 
told Brown that when he himself rode through the Pottawa- 
tomie settlement that afternoon, he found the place perfectly 
quiet, the only excitement relating to Lawrence; that a few 
men were in the fields and the women and children were about 
the cabins.^'' But the height of absurdity is the supposition 
that eight able-bodied men, heavily armed, would spend all 
of one night and the whole of the next day, Saturday, in the 
timber between two ravines near Pottawatomie Creek with- 
out stirring to inquire how the Brown kinsmen and kins- 
women, the Adairs, the Days, Mrs. John Brown, Jr., and 
Mrs. Jason Brown, were faring during the twenty-four hours 
between the return and the murders, if these relatives were 
known to be in danger. If the killings were due to any sudden 
alarm that the creek was to be cleared of all Free State set- 
tlers, then the eight men were craven, indeed, to spend this 
day without scouting the neighborhood. This supposition is 
incredible in view of John Brown's known bravery. His 
men hid because they did not wish their connection with the 
murders known, and after the crime they returned stealthily 
to Ottawa Jones's without having troubled any one with a 
question as to the fate of the unguarded women and children 
of their comrades of the Pottawatomie Rifles. 

The truth must be that John Brown decided on the mur- 
ders because of some general reason or previous conviction 
that it was necessary to remove the victims, and not because 
of any sudden news. As to the messenger, there was none; 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 177 

the reports of threats to Free State settlers made by the Sher- 
mans and Doyles, which were undoubtedly talked of In the 
camp and hastened John Brown's action, were brought in 
not by any one man or any two men, but by Bondi, Weiner, 
Townsley and others of the Rifles. H. H. Williams, in his 
contemporary letter, records that he rode ten miles up and 
down the creek to call his company together, and that thirty- 
four men had come from various distances by six p. M. to 
the rendezvous. As they marched that night, they doubtless 
exchanged news and gossip ; the story about " Dutch Bill " and 
Mary Grant may have been magnified in the telling and re- 
telling and reached many ears for the first time as the little 
column stumbled forward over the dark roads, while the excite- 
ment of the hour probably led some of the men to think that 
"Dutch Bill's" drunken threat had just been uttered. 

To find the reason and the excuse for the cold-blooded 
murder of the Doyles, Sherman and Wilkinson, we must, 
therefore, look elsewhere. The Grants" and others tell of a 
meeting at "Dutch Henry's," immediately after the depar- 
ture of the Rifles, at which the subsequently murdered men 
swore to drive out all the Free State settlers within a given 
time and reduce their houses to ashes. On the other hand, 
Salmon Brown declares positively that "it was not the re- 
port of any such meeting specifically that started us off to 
Pottawatomie." Nor, as we have seen, could the news of this 
meeting have reached the camp near Prairie City before 
John Brown started for home. That the meeting occurred, 
the Grants are positive, but it, too, must be discarded as a 
motive for the bloody deed on the Pottawatomie. 

There remains, then, the question how far the threats 
against the Browns, heard in the Buford camp, and those 
made against the Free State settlers on the Pottawatomie as 
a whole, were the controlling reason for the crime. It is im- 
possible to avoid the belief that they were a most important 
factor in moving John Brown to adopt Border Ruffian tac- 
tics. Salmon Brown declares that his father and the others 
were well aware that the pro-slavery men of the Doyle-Sher- 
man type had decided on extreme measures against them. 
The stories of Bondi, Weiner, Benjamin and Townsley all 
had their effect upon the Browns. According to Horace Haskell 



178 JOHN BROWN 

Day, son of Orson Day, when his father went to Welner's 
store, which was just one and a half miles from the Doyles' 
cabin, he found a notice up that all Free State men must get 
off the creek within thirty days, or have their throats cut. 
Weiner said to Mr. Day: "We ought to cut their throats." 
Mr. Day not consenting, Weiner said: "That is the way we 
serve them in Texas," — from which place he had come.^* 
Orson Day being a brother-in-law of John Brown and resid- 
ing directly opposite John Brown, Jr., it would have been 
easy for him to repeat this happening to his relatives. There 
are witnesses like Mr. M. V. B. Jackson, who . heard from 
Weiner, Bondi and Townsley direct the threats made against 
them. Mr. Jackson testifies that three days was the time of 
grace allowed to Weiner, Benjamin and Bondi, at the expira- 
tion of which they were to leave under pain of lynch law.^^ 
John B. Manes is another witness to Benjamin's being warned. 
"I know," he has affirmed,^" "that there was a reign of ter- 
ror, of which the men who were killed were the authors; and 
I am surprised that any one should believe that the killing of 
these men was without reasonable excuse." He asks whether 
the Free State men were to abandon Kansas, or to fold their 
arms and await martrydom when their days of grace expired. 
Or were they to slay the would-be murderers, to save them- 
selves? Here again the question recurs: If John Brown knew 
of the notice posted in Weiner's store, and was also aware 
that the pro-slavery men had given the Free Soil settlers 
but three or five days in which to leave, why did he march 
off to Lawrence leaving the women and children defenceless 
and the Doyles and Shermans free to do their worst? He 
could not know that he would be free to return within twenty- 
four hours, for the fate of Lawrence was not learned until the 
company had marched twenty-five miles. For all any of the 
men could foresee, they might be going off on a campaign 
that would last for some days — perhaps even weeks. 

It must not be forgotten, too, that threats of slicing a man's 
throat, or cutting his heart out, or driving him away, were the 
cheapest and most conspicuous product of Border Ruffian 
activity. Every drunken pro-slavery man had a quiver-full 
of them. The Squatter Sovereign has them on every page; the 
blasphemy and promises of extermination that marked the 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 179 

harangues of Atchison, Jones and men of that stamp are to be 
found broadcast in the files of the Tribune and the volumes 
of Gladstone, Redpath, Phillips, Sara Robinson and the other 
contemporary Free Soil writers. The threats uttered on the 
Pottawatomie must have been convincing, indeed, to incite 
John Brown to do what the Border Ruffians only talked of 
doing. But this merely adds to the mystery why the appeal 
of Lawrence should have taken precedence over the safety of 
Pottawatomie, as does the affirmation of Jason Brown that 
a friendly pro-slavery man had given to the Rev. Mr. Adair 
a list of those whose deaths had been agreed upon by his 
pro-slavery friends, — a story of which Mr. Adair has left no 
written record to aid his kinsman's reputation.^ ^ 

What did John Brown himself ever assign as the reason? 
According to E. A. Coleman, Brown, by means of his surveying 
disguise, obtained the views of the murdered men and found 
that they "had each one committed murder in his heart and 
according to the Scriptures they were guilty of murder and 
I felt justified in having them killed." These w^ords Cole- 
man places in John Brown's mouth; ^^ they are confirmed by 
Colonel Edward Anderson's report of Brown's statement to 
him that the murdered men were planning to "wipe out the 
Free Soil settlers." ^^ According to Coleman's story, therefore. 
Brown, assuming the powers of judge or military autocrat, 
adjudged the Doyles, Shermans and Wilkinson deserving of 
death because they had had murder in their hearts. If this 
version be accepted, we must decide that John Brown be- 
lieved planning murder to be worse than murder itself. We 
have here a most extraordinary confusion of ethics and morals. 
Granting that persecution, and even murders, had followed 
similar threats in other portions of Kansas, and that the ter- 
rible happenings in the Territory were ever present in John 
Brown's brain, one cannot but wonder that he assumed to 
himself the functions of chief executioner and deemed himself 
the one to say just when and how the Sixth Commandment, 
"Thou shalt not kill," should be violated. He was not content 
merely to defend Free State homes and patrol the roads; it 
did not occur to him to form a vigilance committee and warn 
the pro-slavery rascals to cease from troubling and remove 
from the neighborhood, as did in another year James Mont- 



1 80 JOHN BROWN 

gomery, in Linn County ; he was not even content to leave to 
the Almighty, to whom he nightly prayed, that vengeance 
which the Lord has reserved as His. 

But there are plenty of other excuses offered for the crime, 
after the various motives we have examined are discarded. 
It is pointed out that there was no law for Free Soil men in 
the Territory, — only Catos and Lecomptes on the bench to 
dispense injustice. There was no legal road to safety. It is 
averred that the Free Soil settlers were few, half starved, sick 
and intimidated, grown so spiritless, the lack of resistance at 
Lawrence indicated, as to call for some deed of violence to 
rouse them from their helpless inertia. To prove to the Border 
Ruffians that they could no longer destroy and murder with 
impunity, such a terrible warning as that given at Pottawato- 
mie was, therefore, absolutely necessary. Again, it is insisted 
that John Brown's foresight, his consecrated sagacity and 
devotion to the cause, made him strike the blow in order to 
force men to take sides, in order to bring on the righteous and 
necessary war which, to John Brown, was the sole solution 
of the issue in Kansas. If this conflicts with the widely held 
theory that the Pottawatomie killings, by ending the outrages 
in the neighborhood of Osawatomie and stopping the aggres- 
siveness of the Border Ruffians, was a peace measure, it does 
not deter many from excusing the crime as an act of war exe- 
cuted in war time. The dogs of war, it is argued, had been let 
slip by Jones and Donaldson, and as the Doyles, Shermans 
and Wilkinson were spies and informers in league with the 
enemy, they richly merited their fate, which came only just 
in time to save the Osawatomie settlers from general expul- 
sion, if not murder. Then, too, it was said to be but a just 
act of retaliation for the sack of Lawrence and retribution for 
the killing of R. P. Brown, Dow, Barber, Stewart, Jones and 
Collins; it is even alleged, by miscounting these six victims of 
Border Ruffian violence, that John Brown was not eager to 
kill Dutch Henry, but chose his five victims as a deliberate 
offset to the five Free Soilers killed up to that time. Next, it 
is asserted that John Brown was merely carrying out the 
orders of Free Soil leaders who, for motives of policy, did not 
admit at the time that this killing was done with their con- 
nivance and consent. Finally, it is averred by at least one 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 



I8i 



biographer that John Brown was divinely inspired, — God- 
driven to this dire act, because the Deity "makes His will 
known in advance to certain chosen men and women who 
perform it consciously or unconsciously." 

Into this field of theological speculation the historian unfor- 
tunately cannot enter; he is limited to judging or recording 
human motives, particularly as this theory of divine inspira- 
tion has for centuries been the excuse for many of the most 
terrible crimes in history. More capable of critical examina- 
tion is the argument that there existed no law and no courts 
for Free State men; but If the absence of law and just courts 
sanctions midnight assassination, the world is far behindhand 
with its canonizations. The road to legal safety under such 
conditions does not lead by the way of private vengeance; the 
sole substitute Is, as has already been pointed out, lynch law 
openly proclaimed and openly administered. That the Potta- 
watomie murders cannot be both a peace and a war measure 
is obvious. Unfortunately, as will be set forth when the conse- 
quences of the crime are examined, the evidence shows that 
it neither ended the attacks upon individuals nor stopped 
the raids of large armed bodies, as has been alleged by many 
writers, including John Speer. He declared, January 30, 1886, 
that "the spirit of murder was checked," ^^ while F. G. 
Adams, Secretary of the Kansas Historical Society, on Octo- 
ber 25, 1883, averred of Brown's kilhngs that they "put an 
end to the assassination of Free State men for all time," ^^ — 
as if, for example, Frederick Brown and David Garrison were 
not shot down like dogs on August 30, 1856, to say nothing 
of the cold-blooded murders after Pottawatomie of Hoppe, 
Cantrall, Hoyt, Gay and William Phillips, and almost num- 
berless assaults upon persons and attacks upon private pro- 
perty. These might. It is true, have continued had John 
Brown struck no blow at Pottawatomie, for the Border Ruf- 
fians were drunk with their success in looting Lawrence; but 
it certainly cannot be true that they were "stopped" by the 
assassinations. But as a war measure, John Brown's murders 
were beyond doubt successful; they were actually followed 
by more killings of Free State men than had taken place 
previously in the Territory; they led to the burning of Osa- 
watomie and other settlements, to attacks upon the Border 



i82 JOHN BROWN 

Ruffian "forts," and to the stand-up fighting at Black Jack 
and Osawatomle. If John Brown intended to set men at each 
others' throats, to make every man take sides, to bring mat- 
ters in Kansas to a head, he was wholly successful when he 
lived up to the Biblical doctrine he often quoted, that "with- 
out the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." 

As to the theory that John Brown was directed by higher 
authorities in the Free State ranks, the best evidence is a 
recently discovered letter from Samuel C. Pomeroy to Re- 
becca B. Spring, written in Georgetown, D. C, January i6, 
i860, just after Brown's execution, when the events of 1856 
should have been fresh in his memory, and here first printed : 

"I am waiting here quietly to see the progress of Mason's 'In- 
vestigating Committee.' They have declined to summon me — or 
any other man, who dare under oath, defend John Brown ! ! I dont 
care what are the consequences to me politically, I will, upon the 
first occasion, at the Capitol of this country — defend that old man, 
who offered up himself gloriously — from the charge or crime of 
murder! No blow had been struck by anyone of us — up to May 
2 1 St, 1856. I was in command as Chairman of the 'Committee of 
Public Safety,' at Lawrence, upon that memorable occasion. 

" I insisted — though our Town was threatened with destruction 

— and the invading army was then within 12 miles of Town ! and 
numbered over 1200 men — well armed — That we should give 
the Government a fair opportunity to protect us, And to this end I 
applied to those in authority. But in the course of that day I found 
that the Government was yielded to the 'border Ruffians.' — I still 
insisted (though against the earnest appeal of John Brown & his 
men) that the government should commit the first overt act. And I 
told them, then and there, that so soon as I could demonstrate before 
this Country that the Government was powerless for protection, 
Then I was with them, for taking care of ourselves ! So we stood still, 
upon that day and saw our Presses & buildings madly destroyed. The 
few monuments of our civilization, which had been hastily erected, 
were strewn to the winds, or consumed in the flames ! 

"Upon the morning of the 22nd of May we called a little meeting 

— of sad but earnest men. Taking each other by the hand we con- 
venanted, each with the other, that what there was left to us in this 
life, and if need he, all we hoped for in the life to come, should now 
be offered up, to the FREEDOM of KANSAS, and the country. 

"A poorly written badly spelled note, passed round that meeting 
that Doyl, Wilkinson, Sherman, and others upon the Pottawatomie 
Creek, had insulted the females of one family, whose head was then 
present, and warned others under pain of death to leave the Terri- 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 183 

tory by the 25th Inst., that very week! What could I say? Or do? 
I had withheld our impatient men, until before us lay the smoking 
ruins of the home we loved the best, of any spot upon earth. 

"You know what was said and 'did.' As the Government af- 
forded no protection to us, even when we placed ourselves under 
its special protection, it was then and there Resolved — that every 
man be [we _?] met that invaded or threatened our lives, or homes, 
or our families & friends, should without delay of law or cotirts, or 
officers, be driven to Missouri or to death If 

"We separated that morning, each to the great work of life, viz. 
to do his_ duty — to himself — to his country & to his God. John 
Brown did not personly go the whole distance with the party that 
went down upon Pottawatomy creek. But he approved of the course 
decided upon for action, — and SO DID I ! And I am not now going 
to repudiate old Brown, or to shrink from the responsibility! 

"He did not commit the 'murders' as they are called, but we all 
then endorsed them, — and from that hour the invaders fled. That 
one act struck terror into the hearts of our enemies, and gave us the 
dawning of success! Those deaths I have no doubt saved a multi- 
tude of lives, and was the cheapest sacrifice that could be offered!" ^^ 

Unfortunately for the accuracy of this statement, we know 
now that neither the Brown women nor those of the Grant 
family were insulted. The testimonies of fifty- two witnesses 
of value in connection with the Pottawatomie murders have 
been examined for light on this subject. Pomeroy is the only 
one to suggest that John Brown was in Lawrence on May 21 
and 22, with the exception of Daniel W. Wilder, who even adds 
that he was there with six sons and his son-in-law." It Is not 
conceivable that John Brown could have been there and have 
fired no shot to defend the town. Moreover, his surviving 
sons and son-in-law know nothing about It — Salmon Brown 
denying It positively. If this Is not enough, the character of 
John Brown's own statements should sul^ce; he would never 
have suppressed the fact that he saw Lawrence destroyed ; and 
finally, the dates he gives for his movements prior to the mur- 
ders, corroborated by many witnesses, render It physically 
Impossible for him to have been In Lawrence at the time speci- 
fied. 

The belief that John Brown was Inspired by Robinson, 
Pomeroy and Lane was, however, held by others. Congress- 
man Oliver made the general charge. In his minority report to 
the Howard Committee Report, that Brown's victims "were 



i84 JOHN BROWN 

deprived of their lives ... in consequence of the insurrec- 
tionary movements . . . set on foot by the reckless leaders of 
theTokepaConvention,"^^ — an allegation not specific enough 
to call for refutation in this connection. In a letter written 
on February 8, 1875, Captain Samuel Walker alleges that 
Brown complained to him in the summer 9f 1856 that Lane 
and Robinson were instigators of the crime, but would not sus- 
tain him in it." Captain Walker also informed Frank B. San- 
born that Lane and Robinson asked him to commit the same 
murders, but that he indignantly refused to do so.^° John 
Brown, Jr., once charged Robinson in great detail with asking 
his father in the following September to dispose of the leading 
pro-slavery men by killing, which request, he said, was indig- 
nantly spurned. ^1 Henry Thompson testifies similarly.^^ g^^ 
Robinson positively denied the charge, as he most emphati- 
cally denied any complicity in the Pottawatomie murders. 
One cannot have entire respect for Governor Robinson's 
character; in this instance he at one time likened John Brown 
to Jesus Christ, and hailed him as a saviour of Kansas, only 
to turn around a couple of years later and denounce him, — 
even to speak of the "punishment due John Brown for his 
crimes in Kansas." ^^ On the other hand, John Brown, Jr.'s 
mind was, unfortunately, not always clear. It is important to 
remember here that John Brown at no time during the rest 
of his life made any positive statement which would indicate 
that he was acting under orders in doing his bloody work 
at Pottawatomie, — not even when, in jail and facing death, 
he was asked by Judge Russell, of Boston, for a definite 
statement as to his responsibility for the crime. ^^ If he cher- 
ished the feeling of anger against Robinson and Lane which 
Walker declared he voiced in 1856, he does not appear to have 
expressed it again. 

To mitigate the abruptness and cruelty of the tragedy, it 
is often loosely asserted that the victims were duly tried by 
a jury. John Sherman stated that he had this from John 
Brown's ow^n lips shortly after the crime. ^^ But no one else 
avers this, while the survivors of the massacre, Henry Thomp- 
son and Salmon Brown, deny it. No member of the Brown 
family has advanced this theory. The testimony of Townsley 
and the families of the murdered men as to the speed of the 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 185 

executions and their taking place consecutively Is also con- 
clusive, as Is the fact that no juryman has ever been dis- 
covered. 

In the light of all the evidence now accumulated, the truth 
would seem to be that John Brown came to Kansas bringing 
arms and ammunition, eager to fight, and convinced that 
force alone would save Kansas. He was under arms at the 
polls within three days of his arrival in Kansas, to shed blood 
to defend the voters, If need be, and he was bitterly disap- 
pointed that the Wakarusa "war" ended without a single 
conflict. Thereafter he believed that a collision was inevitable 
in the spring, and Jones and Donaldson proved him to be cor- 
rect. Fired with indignation at the wrongs he witnessed on 
every hand, impelled by the Covenanter's spirit that made 
him so strange a figure in the nineteenth century, and believ- 
ing fully that there should be an eye for an eye and a tooth for 
a tooth, he killed his men in the conscientious belief that he 
was a faithful servant of Kansas and of the Lord. He killed 
not to kill, but to free; not to make wives widows and children 
fatherless, but to attack on Its own ground the hideous insti- 
tution of human slavery, against which his whole life was a 
protest. He pictured himself a modern crusader as much em- 
powered to remove the unbeliever as any armored searcher 
after the Grail. It was to his mind a righteous and necessary 
act; if he concealed his part In it and always took refuge in 
the half-truth that his own hands were not stained, that 
was as near to a compromise for the sake of policy as this 
rigid, self-denying Roundhead ever came. Naturally a tender- 
hearted man, he directed a particularly shocking crime with- 
out remorse, because the men killed typified to him the slave- 
drivers who counted their victims by the hundreds. It was to 
him a necessary carrying into Africa of the war in which he 
firmly desired himself engaged. And always It must not be 
forgotten that his motives were wholly unselfish, and that his 
aims were none other than the freeing of a race. With his 
ardent, masterful temperament, he needed no counsel from a 
Lane or a Robinson to make him ready to strike a blow, or to 
tell him that the time for it had come. The smoke of burning 
Lawrence was more than sufficient. 

If this interpretation of the man and his motives lifts him 



t86 JOHN BROWN 

far above the scale of that Border Ruffian who boasted that he 
would have the scalp of an Abolitionist within two hours and 
actually killed and scalped the very first one he met, it can- 
not be denied that the Border Ruffians who sacked Lawrence 
believed as thoroughly in the justice of their cause, and their 
right to establish in Kansas what was to them a sacred institu- 
tion, as John Brown did in his. Their leaders had told them of 
an agreement in Congress that Kansas should be a slave State 
and Nebraska free.«« Hence their belief that the North had 
broken this compact rendered them particularly bitter against 
the Free Soilers. It was to them also a holy war in which they 
were engaged, — even with its admixture of whiskey and law- 
lessness, characteristics of the Southern "poor white" civiliza- 
tion of the period. If one grants to John Brown absolution 
for the Pottawatomie murders because he struck in what was 
to him a moral crusade, one must come near granting it to 
the Border Ruffian Hamilton, who made eleven men, most of 
whom he had never seen before, stand up in line on May 
19, 1858, that he might shoot them down." In his behalf it 
could much more truthfully be said that there was war in Linn 
County in 1858 than that there was war about Osawatomie in 
1856. Hamilton doubtless intended also to send terror to the 
hearts of his enemies, to drive them from the Territory. That 
the five men he killed were of blameless reputation, while 
John Brown's five victims were weak or bad characters, does 
not alter the case from the moral or the legal point of view. 
Murder is murder, whatever the character of the victims; it 
remains, in its essence, unchanged in these two cases,^ even 
though the leader of one set of self-appointed executioners 
has been excused by his friends, and the other universally 
execrated. Might not Hamilton, too, have been portrayed 
as the tool of a vengeful Deity? Might he not, to use James 
Freeman Clarke's characterization of John Brown, have 
maintained that he believed in "fighting fire with fire," that 
"there was no malice or desire for vengeance in his constitu- 
tion"?*^ Certainly, Hamilton's catholic choice of victims — 
he seized them in the fields and on the roads as he met them 
— would prove that he also killed without personal enmity. 
It may be that Hamilton thought that by so blood-curdling 
an assassination he could stop the hostile operations of armed 



MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 187 

Free Soil bands led by Montgomery, Jennison — - admittedly a 
bad character — and others. If this theory is wrong, Hamil- 
ton's Marais des Cygnes massacre ought at least to have 
estopped James Freeman Clarke and other defenders of Brown 
from saying that after Brown's victims were killed, " the coun- 
try had peace." It should have prevented any likening of 
John Brown to Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, whose orders 
killed thousands in " another war, " — as if war could exist save 
under those rules of war which as peremptorily forbid mid- 
night assassination as they do the violation of women and the 
poisoning of wells. Finally, a real war-commander always 
assumes the responsibility for his acts, while John Brown was 
ever disingenuous about the Pottawatomie massacres. 

From the point of view of ethics, John Brown's crime on 
the Pottawatomie cannot be successfully palliated or excused. 
It must ever remain a complete indictment of his judgment 
and wisdom; a dark blot upon his memory; a proof that, how- 
ever self-controlled, he had neither true respect for the laws 
nor for human life, nor a knowledge that two wrongs never 
make a right. Call him a Cromwellian trooper with the Old 
Testament view of the way of treating one's enemies, as did 
James Freeman Clarke, if you please; it is nevertheless true 
that Brown lived in the nineteenth century and was properly 
called upon to conform to its standard of morals and right 
living. What would become of society if it permitted all 
whose spirits would hark back to the modes of life of other 
times and other morals to have their way? Describing Brown 
as a misplaced Crusader cannot, moreover, conceal the regret- 
table fact that the Pottawatomie murders deprived the Free 
Soil cause of an enormous moral advantage. Up to May, 1856, 
its adherents had suffered, bled and died, without any blood- 
guilt attaching to them. This gave them, as unoffending vic- 
tims of pro-slavery fury, an unsurpassed standing in the court 
of public opinion. Their hands were clean; they had been 
attending to their own affairs and were crying out against 
wrong and injustice by the time-honored methods of protest, 
— through the press, the ballot-box, the right of assembly, the 
setting up a government of their own to be passed upon by 
the highest tribunals of the land, that is, the courts and the 
Congress of the United States. The Free State leaders had 



i88 JOHN BROWN 

hitherto counselled peaceful submission to wrong as the surest 
way to the sympathies of the nation, and to that eventual 
justice which no believer in American institutions could 
despair of, even in 1856, when the whole weight of the Federal 
Government and its troops had been thrown against the Free 
Soilers. For the court of last resort, the conscience of the 
American people, had not yet been heard from as it was but a 
few years later. Of a sudden, all this great moral superiority 
was flung away ; ®^ the sack of Lawrence, the Pottawatomie 
murders, brought about a complete change of policy. The 
militant Abolitionists of the John Brown, Horace Greeley, 
Henry Ward Beecher type reaped their harvest. The Sharp's 
rifles, " Beecher's Bibles," now came into play. But the South 
at last had its tu-qiioque. "You sacked Lawrence," said the 
North. "But you resorted to the vilest of midnight assassina- 
tions of unarmed men and boys," replied the South. Sumner 
could not have delivered unaltered his wonderful philippic, 
the "Crime Against Kansas," after the crimes against Mis- 
souri had begun. There was now blood upon both sides. 

For John Brown no pleas can be made that will enable him 
to escape coming before the bar of historical judgment. There 
his wealth of self-sacrifice, and the nobility of his aims, do not 
avail to prevent a complete condemnation of his bloody crime 
at Pottawatomie, or a just penalty for his taking human life 
without warrant or authority. If he deserves to live in his- 
tory, it is not because of his cruel, gruesome, reprehensible 
acts on the Pottawatomie, but despite them.^'' 



CHAPTER VI 
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 



WAR! WAR! 

Eight Pro-Slavery men murdered by the Abolitionists 
in Franklin County, K. T. 

LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR! 

We learn from a despatch just received by Col. A. G. 
Boone, dated at Paola, K. T., May 26, 1856, and 
signed by Gens. Heiskell and Barbee, that the reported 
murder of eight pro-slavery men in Franklin County, 
K. T., is but too true. 

It was thus that the Westport, Missouri, Border Times gave 
to its readers, on May 2^, 1856, the news that was intended 
to strike terror to their hearts. The only reason for the crime 
the despatch assigned was that "the abolitionists (the court 
being in session) were afraid that these men [their victims] 
would be called upon to give evidence against them, as many 
of them were charged with treason." The Border Times sup- 
plemented this news with an appeal to the South for men 
and money, because civil war with all its horrors now reigned 
in Kansas. The Jefferson, Missouri, Inquirer of the 29th, and 
the Lexington, Missouri, Express of the 26th reprinted the 
Western Despatch's account of the crime and also its edito- 
rial assertion that "for every Southern man thus butchered 
a decade [dozen?] of these poltroons should bite the dust." 
Henry Clay Pate, correspondent of the St. Louis Missouri 
Republican, wrote on May 30 that no personal grudges ex- 
isted between the murdered and the murderers, "in fact no 
cause whatever can be or is attempted to be assigned for 
their savage barbarity but that the deceased were proslav- 
ery in their sentiments." Thirteen persons supposed to be con- 
nected with the crime were under arrest, and if ever lynch laws 
were justifiable, in Pate's opinion this was the time. The pro- 



190 JOHN BROWN 

slavery Kansas Weekly Herald of Leavenworth, in its issue 
of June 7, reprinted a column and a half of news from the 
Lecompton Union, in the course of which that newspaper sar- 
castically said: 

"These are the 'Free State men' who have been so deeply out- 
raged by the law and order party, but have, like martyrs, passed 
through the fire, without the stain of blood upon their skirts or the 
mark of pillage upon their consciences. This is the party so pure 
and untarnished with dishonor that their very natures revolt at 
and recoil from the countenancing of even a minor disgrace, much 
less the foul assassination of Sheriff Jones. This is the party that 
held an indignation meeting in Lawrence, headed by Charles Rob- 
inson and A. H. Reeder, passed resolutions and even offered a re- 
ward for the apprehension of him who shot Jones. . . . These are 
the men who are cursing the Marshal and posse for blowing up this 
'Northern Army's' fortress and destroying their mouthpieces and 
are denominating them plunderers and committers of arson, and 
this news is taken up by their agents in the North, heralded forth 
from one extreme to the other as truth, asking protection for these 
innocent free state creatures." 

Another correspondent of the Missouri Republican, one 
J. Bernard, reporting from Westport the arrival there of Mrs. 
Doyle, added that "a more cruel murder has scarcely been 
committed;" it was a "foul and inhuman act." The fighting 
Squatter Sovereign, of Atchison, was distinctly sobered by the 
news from Kansas, but still ready to fight, for on June lo it 
thus freed its ever surcharged mind : 

"Midnight murders, assassinations, burglaries, and arson seem 
now to be the watchwords of the so-called Free State party. Whilst 
those rebellious subjects confined themselves to the resistance of 
the law, in their attempts to make arrests, and execute processes in 
their hands, the pro-slavery party in the territory was determined 
to stand by the law, and aid the officers in executing process and 
the courts in administering justice. And that we have no doubt 
is still the determination of every pro-slavery man, but there is a 
time for all things. Self-protection — defence of one's life, family 
and property, are rights guaranteed to all law-abiding citizens; 
and the manner and mode of keeping off murderers, assassins, &c., 
are not confined to any very strict rules of law. . . . Hundreds of 
the Free State men, who have committed no overt acts, but have 
only given countenance to those reckless murderers, assassins and 
thieves, will of necessity share the same fate of their brethren. If 
civil war is to be the result in such a conflict, there cannot be, and 
will not be, any neutrals recognized." 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 191 

The St. Louis Morning Herald on June 13 informed its 
readers, on the authority of a Lecompton correspondent, 
that: "The AboHtionists are continuing their aSvSassinations 
and plunder. Robinson has given orders for a guerrilla war. 
Besides the murders at Ossawatomie, by the noted Brown, 
others have been attempted in the neighborhood." Six days 
later, hearing from Lawrence that the Pottawatomie massacre 
was done for the deliberate purpose of impressing the Border 
Ruffians, it said: "Here is the avowal of a man who ought to 
know; he tells you that midnight assassination, which revives 
in all their atrocity the most fiendish barbarities of the darkest 
ages and which, we repeat, is without parallel in Christendom 
since the Revolution in France, is deliberately planned to strike 
terror into the hearts of political opponents! Whether such 
will be the effect of the lesson remains to be seen." Editorially, 
the Meriting Herald had already expressed the hope that the 
pro-slavery party would not retaliate in kind and would re- 
frain from lynching the assassins, while its rival, the Missouri 
Republican, was quick to see the advantage which lay in 
declaring that this bloody outcome of civil war was the "legit- 
imate result of the counsels of such preachers as Beecher." 
Curiously enough, as James Ford Rhodes points out,^ the 
Democratic press of the country as a whole, except that on 
the border, made comparatively little use of the killings. One 
Northern newspaper, the Burlington, Iowa, Gazette, denounced 
them on June 25; the Liberator, whose editor, William Lloyd 
Garrison, strongly protested against the Sharp's rifle teachings 
of Beecher and the militant Abolitionists, ^ wholly failed to 
record Brown's crime. Senator Toombs, of Georgia, and Con- 
gressman Oliver cited the murders in the course of speeches 
in the Senate and House. But the Republican newspapers, 
intentionally or unintentionally, deceived their readers by 
garbled reports of the crime. It was generally represented 
that five of a pro-slavery gang, caught hanging a Free State 
settler, were shot by the latter's friends as they came to his 
rescue, and the Republican press took extremely good care 
not to give much space to the affair. As Mr. Rhodes explains, 
the hitherto excellent character of the Free State settlers 
rendered it impossible for the East to credit the story, or for 
the Democrats to bring it home to them as they should have. 



192 JOHN BROWN 

Only in Missouri did the Southern press make of it all that was 
possible. The address of the Law and Order Party to their 
friends of the South, signed by Atchison, B. F. Stringfellow, 
Major Buford and others on June 21,^ naturally used the 
massacre to the utmost, declaring, among other things, that 
Wilkinson had been "flayed alive," and that besides the "six 
victims," the bodies of four others were still missing. 

Governor Shannon promptly reported the murders to Presi- 
dent Pierce. From Lecompton, May 31, he wrote: ^ 

"... Comment is unnecessary. The respectability of the par- 
ties and the cruelties attending the murders have produced an 
extraordinary state of excitement in that portion of the Territory, 
which has heretofore remained comparatively quiet. ... I hope 
the offenders may be brought to Justice; if so, it may allay to a 
great extent the excitement, otherwise I fear the consequences." 

Governor Shannon's anxiety was justified. On the 27th of 
May the news of the Pottawatomie crimes was posted all over 
Leavenworth. The leading Free State business men were 
arrested, and, according to an eye-witness, William H. Coffin, 
only the urgent solicitation of such men as General Richardson 
and other leading pro-slavery officials prevented their meeting 
with violence.^ Other influential Free State men were ban- 
ished. Four days later, the 31st, when Governor Shannon 
was writing his report, a meeting of the Law and Order Party 
was held in Leavenworth to protest against the Pottawatomie 
murders. At this gathering, so the Tribune reported,^ "leading 
pro-slavery citizens — some of them heretofore moderate 
men — were the officers and speechmakers. Violent speeches 
were made, and resolutions of the same character were passed, 
condemning all Free State men without distinction, and 
appointing a Vigilance Committee of fifty to watch their 
movements, and to warn offenders from the Territory." ^ 

At Fort Scott, the Southeastern rendezvous of Border Ruf- 
fians, the news that Lawrence was burned was received with 
a general feeling of joy, but it was followed by the rumor that 
at Osawatomie five, and some said nine, pro-slavery men had 
been called up in the night and, as soon as they made their 
appearance, had been shot by the Abolitionists. This caused 
a general feeling of alarm and indignation, and the young men 
of Fort Scott, on their own responsibility, organized them- 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 193 

selves into a "watch guard " to protect the Fort from invasion 
by the AboHtionists, for, to add to the excitement, it had been 
currently reported that Fort Scott was to be burned as a 
retaliation for the destruction of Lawrence.^ Some of the Mis- 
sourians at once took the offensive. Although Mrs. Robinson 
was of the opinion that "the news of the horrible massacre 
fell upon the ears of the Border Ruffians like a thunderbolt 
out of a clear sky, and carried fear and trembling into many 
Missouri homes," and that "his [Brown's] name became one 
of terror, like that of hobgoblins to silly children, or that of 
Lafitte upon the sea," ^ Captain Henry Clay Pate, the fighting 
correspondent of the Missouri Republican, went at once with 
his company to Paola, eight miles from Osawatomie, to assist 
the United States Marshal in arresting the Pottawatomie 
Creek murderers. On June 2, General J. W. Whitfield, the del- 
egate to Congress, wrote from Westport to the editor of the 
Border Times that news had reached there of disaster to Cap- 
tain Pate's company. This was his statement of the situation : 

There can scarcely be a doubt that this small force has been 
annihilated. This town, where the congressional committee are 
now taking evidence, has been thronged during the day with men 
with their families, fleeing from the territory to avoid assassination 
and butchery. I am constantly in receipt of letters and appeals for 
protection. The cowardly and fiendish manner in which the assas- 
sinations have been perpetrated, particularly those on Pottawato- 
mie creek (which I am informed by Judge Cato just in from that 
place have not been exaggerated in the public accounts, indeed do 
not equal the reality,) leaves but little hope that these abolition 
monsters can be actuated by any other consideration than that of 
fear. I have, therefore, determined to start in an hour or two, with 
as many men as can be raised, in the hope, if not too late, of reliev- 
ing the little band, under Capt. Pate, and afford what protection I 
can to the peaceful citizens of the territory, and restore in it order 
and peace. ... 

Jno. W. Whitfield.^" ^ 

Two of John Brown's sons fell readily into the hands of the 
Missourians, — John Brown, Jr., and Jason Browm. They had 
spent but one night in the Adair cabin, — the one in which, as 
we have seen, John Brown, Jr., became insane. Leaving their 
wives the next morning, in fear lest their presence attract the 
Border Ruffians, they set off, Jason with the idea of surren- 



194 JOHN BROWN 

dering to the United States troops and demanding protection. 
Jason shortly thereafter encountered a body of Border Ruf- 
fians headed by the notorious "Rev." Martin White. He has 
thus told the story of the encounter: " 

" I did not recognize in the leader the man who had led the squad 
of 'steer hunters' to our camp when we first reached the Territory. 
But he was that same Martin White. I walked straight up to him. 
'Can you tell me the way to Taway Jones's?' 'You are one of the 
very men we are looking for! Your name is Brown. I knew your 
father. I knew your brother!' shouted White. Up came all the 
guns clicking. 'Down with him!' the squad yelled. 'You are our 
prisoner,' said White. 'Got any arms?' 'A revolver.' 'Hand it 
out.' 'Now go ahead of the horses.' I was weak with ague, excite- 
ment, fatigue. But I was terribly afraid of torture. I knew what 
these men had done to others, and all my habitual stammering left 
me. 'My name is Jason Brown,' I said, standing facing them. 'I 
am a Free State man, and what you call an Abolitionist. I have 
never knowingly injured a human being. Now if you want my blood 
for that, there is a mark for you.' And I pulled open the bosom of 
my shirt. I expected to be shot to pieces. And they took that for 
courage! Three-fourths of them laid their guns across their saddles 
and began to talk friendly. Martin White said: 'We won't kill you 
now. But you are our prisoner and we hold every man a scoundrel 
till he is proven honest.' One man, a villainous face, kept his gun 
up. I dared not turn my back, until I had backed thirty rods or so. 
I wanted to be killed quickly, not to be tortured. They drove me 
four miles at a fast walk. Then we came to a cabin and store. I was 
having chills every day, then, and at that moment my chill came 
on. They gave me a sack of coffee for a pillow. The man who had 
kept his gun levelled came and looked at me, with his bowie knife 
raised. 'Do you see anything bad about me?' I asked. 'I don't see 
anything good about ye!' he snarled, but went away. As the fever 
came on they put me on a horse, tied my feet beneath him and my 
arms behind me and took me, with a guard of twenty men, to Paola, 
where were about three hundred armed pro-slavery men. One flour- 
ished a coil of new hemp rope over his head as we rode up. 'Swing 
him up! Swing him up!' he shouted. They hustled me over to a 
tree and that man flung his rope end over a limb and stood ready. 
I sat down on the grass by the tree. I did n't suppose I had a friend 
in that crowd. Then came what changed my whole mind and life 
as to my feeling toward slave-holders. I can't see a Southerner or 
a Southern soldier, now, whatever he thinks of me, without wanting 
to grasp his two hands. 

"As I sat there waiting under the dangling rope, I saw three men 
aside from the yelling crowd, differently dressed from the rest. One 
of them came quietly, tapped me on the shoulder and showed me a 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 195 

scrap of paper in the palm of his hand. ' Whose writing is that? ' asked 
he. 'My father's.' ' Is old John Brown your father?' 'Yes.' Never 
another word did he say, but went around and spoke to the crowd, 
who made so much noise that I could not hear what he said. Then 
he came back, (he was Judge Jacobs, of Lexington, Kentucky, and 
one of his companions was Judge Cato,) and quietly said to me: 
'Come with me to my house and I will treat you like my own son, 
but we must hold you prisoner.' Mrs. Doyle was also staying in that 
house and we all sat at the same table for meals. She said nothing. 
There I was, one lone coward, and about forty proslavery men in 
the house that night. . . . On the third night John was brought in. 
We lay together and I slept soundly on the front side of the bed. 
In the night there was a sudden commotion and a crowd of men 
rushed in. One brandished a bowie knife over me as if to drive it 
into my right side. I' slept on. John bared my heart, and, pointing 
to it, said, 'Strike there.' They took me away, two men holding my 
tied arms, in the middle of the night, leaving John, up to the Shaw- 
nee Mission. But they were afraid to keep me there and the same 
night brought me back again. ..." 

Jason did not see John again for about two weeks. Then the 
latter was becoming sane. But presently a squad arrived to 
escort Jason and John to Osawatomie. 

"Capt. Wood himself came into the room where we two were 
sleeping, seized John by the collar with, — 'Come out here, sir,' 
and jerked him out of bed. Wood himself bound John's wrists be- 
hind him, and then his upper arms, using small, hard hemp rope, 
and he set his teeth and pulled with all his force, tightening the 
turns. Later another rope some forty feet long was passed between 
these two, to drive him by. Outside the leader of the squad which 
was to take us to Osawatomie (I think this was Pate) was calling 
orders to his men. 'Oyez, Oyez, Oyez,' he shouted. 'Form a line 
of battle.' 

"They drove John afoot all the way from Paola to Osawatomie. 
Me, on the other hand, they carried in a wagon. When I saw John 
in the new camp, (they had to change camp as the horses grazed 
the grass off,) John was a maniac and in a terrible condition. They 
had never loosened the cords around his upper arms and the flesh 
was .swollen so that the cords were covered. They had driven him 
through the water of Bull Creek and the yellow flints at the bottom 
had cut through his boots and terribly lacerated his feet. I found 
him chained by each ankle, with an ox-cart chain, to the center 
pole of the guard tent. John, who then fancied himself commander 
of the camp, was shrieking military orders, jumping up and down 
and casting himself about. Capt. Wood said to me: 'Keep that 
man still.' ' I can't keep an insane man still,' said I. ' He is no more 
insane than you are. If you don't keep him still, we'll do it for you.' 



196 JOHN BROWN 

I tried my best, but John had not a ghmmer of reason and could not 
understand anything. He went on yelUng. Three troopers came 
in. One struck him a terrible blow on the jaw with his fist, throw- 
ing him on his side. A second knelt on him and pounded him with 
his fist. The third stood off and kicked him with all his force in 
the back of the neck. 'Don't kill a crazy man!' cried I. 'No more 
crazy than you are,butwe'll fetch it out of him.' After that John 
lay unconscious for three or four hours. We camped about one 
and a half miles southeast of the Adairs. There we stayed about 
two weeks. Then we were ordered to move again. They drove us 
on foot, chained two and two. I was chained to George Partridge. 
In a gang they drove us up right up in front of Adair's house. Aunt 
Florilla came out and talked to Lieut. Iverson, (he was a cruel man!) 
'What does this mean in this Land of the Free? What does this 
mean that you drive these men like cattle and slaves!' and she went 
on, giving him a terrible cutting. Iverson made no reply. Aunt gave 
us all some little food. At Ottawa ford young Kilbourne dropped 
in a sun-stroke. . . . We camped near 'Taway Jones's. All the 
time these troops were looking for Old Brown. And father would 
show himself from time to time, at daylight, at different places, at 
a distance from his real camp. Then word would come to Wood that 
Old Brown and his men had been seen at such a time, here or there 
on Marais des Cygnes. Wood would order out his men to look for 
him, forty miles off, the men would spend themselves hunting along 
the river-bottoms, through dense, prickly tangles, and come back 
at night worn out and furious, their horses done. I heard one say, 
one night, out of his officer's hearing: 'D — d if I'm going after Old 
Brown any more. If I'm ordered out any more, I'll go into the 
bushes and hide.' This kept up three or four days, and all the time 
John Brown was camped so close that he heard the bugle calls, and 
got his water at the same spring where they got theirs. He was 
hoping for a chance to effect a rescue. One day word came to Wood 
that John Brown was near and would attempt a rescue. Thereupon 
he repeated the message to me, commenting: 'If such a rescue be 
attempted and you try to escape, you will be the first ones that we 
will shoot.'" 

A correspondent of the New York Times thus described the 
torture of the prisoners: ^^ 

"^ scene then followed which has no parallel in a republican gov- 
ernment. They were chained two and two by taking a common trace- 
chain and using a padlock at each end, which was so fixed as to make 
a close clasp around the ankle. Like a gang of slaves they were 
thus driven on foot the whole distance at the rate of twenty-five 
miles per day, dragging their chains after them. They were unac- 
customed to travelling — their chains had worn upon their ankles 
until one of them became quite exhausted and was put in a wagon. 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 197 

What a humiliating, disgusting sight in a free government — to 
see a chained gang of men who had committed no crime whatever, 
driven sixty-five miles by their merciless prosecutors to attend a 
trial, then have granted them an unconditional release and no pro- 
vision for redress!" 

This shocking ill-treatment of John Brown, Jr., which is 
confirmed by much contemporary testimony, aroused indig- 
nation in the North, and to its effect upon John Brown was 
attributed, though erroneously, much of the father's bitter- 
ness toward the slaveholders. According to a special corre- 
spondent of the New York Tribune, First Lieutenant James 
Mcintosh, First Cavalry, stated to him in June that the reason 
for the arrest of John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, and the 
severity of their treatment, was the soldiers' belief that they 
were two of the Pottawatomie murderers. ^^ As for Captain 
Thomas J. Wood, it was pointed out at the time that he was 
a native of Kentucky, and it was, therefore, taken for granted 
that his sympathies were with the South, and his cruelties 
due to friendliness for the Border RufTfians. It is an interest- 
ing fact that this officer later became, like Major Sedgwick, a 
distinguished Northern general, one of the very best division 
commanders in the Army of the Cumberland, in which he was 
conspicuous for his wounds, his ability and his gallantry. 
After spending two weeks on Ottawa Creek with his prisoners, 
Captain Wood marched them to Lecompton via Palmyra and 
Lawrence. Here, after an examination, Jason was released, 
but John Brown, Jr., was held on the charge of high treason 
because of his political activity, and was not released until 
September 10. Jason returned to his own claim only to find 
his house burned by the Border Ruffians and his cattle driven 
off, though his oxen later returned to him, of themselves, from 
Missouri. He built himself a shelter of fence rails, but soon 
joined his father's company as the only place where he could 
find safety. His wife and the other women went into the 
Osawatomie block-house for security, for by this time almost 
all the Free State men were out under arms.^^ 

John Brown and those who had participated with him in 
the Pottawatomie murders arrived at Jason Brown's claim 
and went into hiding on May 26, sending his son Owen to 
Osawatomie a day or two later for provisions. Meeting his 



198 JOHN BROWN 

brother, John Brown, Jr., wandering in the brush, Owen 
endeavored to persuade him to join his father, but he admit- 
ted frankly that they were now hunted outlaws, likely to be 
separated for months from all of their families. John then 
declined, only to meet the worse fate already recorded. ^^ On 
Owen's return there came to the camp O. A. Carpenter, a Free 
Soiler from the neighborhood of Prairie City, who offered to 
pilot Brown to the headwaters of Ottawa Creek, as there were 
two companies, one of cavalry and one of Missourians, then 
in search of the murderers. The Brown party broke camp at 
once and started at nightfall in the direction of Lawrence; it 
comprised then, besides the leader, John Brown, his sons Fred- 
erick, Salmon, Owen and Oliver, Henry Thompson, Weiner, 
Townsley, August Bondi and the guide. Carpenter, ''Dutch 
Henry's " horses furnishing some of the mounts. In the course 
of the first few hours of the march, they rode straight into the 
bivouac of a detachment of United States troops presuma- 
bly in pursuit of them. It was near the crossing of the Marais 
des Cygnes River, according to Owen Brown, and the troops 
ordered them to halt. "It was dark," he narrates, "and fa- 
ther called for the captain. In the meantime we placed our 
horses one beyond the other and close together so as to look 
like a small company. After some time the captain came out 
in front of his tent and asked: 'Who are you?' I think father 
replied, 'There are a few of us going towards Lawrence.' The 
captain answered: 'All right, pass on.'" This these modern 
successors of Robin Hood lost no time in doing, and in biv- 
ouacking for the night some distance away, but not far from 
the farm of Howard Carpenter, a brother of their guide. 

The next day they entered some virgin woods on Ottawa 
Creek and camped near a fine spring. Bondi, an able Aus- 
trian Jew, who had put himself under Brown's leadership after 
hearing of the Pottawatomie murders, has left the following 
picture of their al fresco life in the forest primeval : ^^ 

"We stayed here up to the morning of Sunday, the ist of June, 
and during these few days I fully succeeded in understanding the 
exalted character of my old friend [John Brown]. He exhibited at 
all times the most affectionate care for each of us. He also attended 
to cooking. We had two meals daily, consisting of bread, baked in 
skillets; this was washed down with creek water, mixed with a little 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 199 

ginger and a spoon of molasses to each pint. Nevertheless we kept 
in excellent spirits; we considered ourselves as one family, allied to 
one another by the consciousness that it was our duty to undergo 
all these privations to further the good cause; had determined to 
share any danger with one another, that victory or death might 
find us together. We were united as a band of brothers by the love 
and affection towards the man who with tender words and wise 
counsel, in the depth of the wilderness of Ottawa creek, prepared 
a handful of young men for the work of laying the foundation of a 
free commonwealth. His words have ever remained firmly engraved 
on my mind. Many and various were the instructions he gave dur- 
ing the days of our compulsory leisure in this camp. He expressed 
himself to us that we should never allow ourselves to be tempted 
by any consideration to acknowledge laws and institutions to exist 
as of right if our conscience and reason condemned them. 

"He admonished us not to care whether a majority, no matter 
how large, opposed our principles and opinions. The largest ma- 
jorities were sometimes only organized mobs, whose howlings never 
changed black into white, or night into day. A minority conscious 
of its rights, based on moral principles, would, under a republican 
government, sooner or later become the majority." 

On May 30 James Redpath, the correspondent of the St. 
Louis Democrat and the Tribune, rode by accident into this 
gathering. His description, too, is worth reprinting, since the 
scene he portrays beyond doubt represents many similar ones 
in John Brown's life: ^^ 

"I shall not soon forget the scene that here opened to my view. 
Near the edge of the creek a dozen horses were tied, all ready sad- 
dled for a ride for life, or a hunt after Southern invaders. A dozen 
rifles and sabres were stacked around the trees. In an open space, 
amid the shady and lofty woods, there was a great blazing fire with 
a pot on it; a woman, bareheaded, with an honest, sun-burnt face, 
was picking blackberries from the bushes; three or four armed men 
were lying on red and blue blankets on the grass; and two fine- 
looking youths were standing, leaning on their arms, on guard near 
by. One of them was the youngest son of Old Brown, and the other 
was ' Charley,' the brave Hungarian, who was subsequently mur- 
dered at Ossawatomie. Old Brown himself stood near the fire, with 
his shirt-sleeves rolled up, and a large piece of pork in his hand. 
He was cooking a pig. He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded 
from his boots. The old man received me with great cordiality, 
and the little band gathered about me. But it was for a moment 
only; for the Captain ordered them to renew their work. He re- 
spectfully but firmly forbade conversation on the Pottawatomie 
affair; and said that, if I desired any information from the com- 



200 JOHN BROWN 

pany in relation to their conduct or intentions, he, as their Captain, 
would answer for them whatever it was proper to communicate. 

"In this camp no manner of profane language was permitted; 
no man of immoral character was allowed to stay, excepting as a 
prisoner of war. He made prayers in which all the company united, 
every morning and evening; and no food was ever tasted by his 
men until the Divine blessing had been asked on it. After every 
meal, thanks were returned to the Bountiful Giver. Often, I was 
told, the old man would retire to the densest solitudes, to wrestle 
with his God in secret prayer. One of his company subsequently 
informed me that, after these retirings, he would say that the Lord 
had directed him in visions what to do; that, for himself, he did not 
love warfare, but peace, — only acting in obedience to the will of 
the Lord, and fighting God's battles for His children's sake. 

" It was at this time that the old man said to me: ' I would rather 
have the small-pox, yellow fever, and cholera all together in my 
camp, than a man without principles. It's a mistake, sir,' he con- 
tinued, 'that our people make, when they think that bullies are the 
best fighters, or that they are the men fit to oppose these Southern- 
ers. Give me men of good principles; God-fearing rnen; men who 
respect themselves; and, with a dozen of them, I will oppose any 
hundred such men as these Buford ruffians!'" 

Besides Charles Kaiser, subsequently murdered in cold 
blood by the Border Rufifians, as Redpath records, Benjamin 
Cochrane, a settler on the Pottawatomie, had joined Brown's 
band, the latter bringing the news that Bondi's cabin had 
been burned, his cattle stolen and Weiner's store plundered, 
in plain view, he alleged, of United States troops. Captain 
Samuel T. Shore, of the Prairie City Rifles, and a Dr. Westfall 
also visited the camp, bringing news of Border Rufifian out- 
rages and asking for aid.'^ Captain Shore brought provisions, 
and on May 31 reported that a large force of Missourians had 
gone into camp near Black Jack, a spring on the Santa Fe 
trail, named for a group of "black jack" oaks. It was agreed 
that Brown's party and as many men as Shore could get to- 
gether should meet at Prairie City at ten o'clock in the fore- 
noon of the next day. This took place. Brown's men attend- 
ing a service held by an itinerant preacher, with part of the 
congregation in a building, part outside. The services were 
interrupted by the passing of three strangers in the direction 
of Black Jack. Two of them were captured, and, when ques- 
tioned by John Brown, admitted that they were from the 
camp of Henry Clay Pate, the correspondent of the St. Louis 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 201 

Missouri Republican, a captain in the Missouri militia and 
a deputy United States Marshal, who, as already related, on 
the news of the Pottawatomie murders, had marched at once 
to Paola and, after assisting in the round-up there of Free 
State men, including John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, had 
pushed on into the Territory in search of the other Browns. 

At that time twenty-four years of age, a native of Kanawha 
County, Virginia, and a former student of the University of 
Virginia, Pate had in him the making of a fine soldier, for he 
died, well spoken of, as Colonel of the Fifth Virginia Cavalry, 
in command of a brigade of cavalry, on the same day and, it is 
said, within a hundred yards of where the brilliant Confed- 
erate General, J. E. B. Stuart, was mortally wounded. This 
was near Yellow Tavern, Virginia, May 11, 1864.1^ Pate's, 
John Brown's and Stuart's careers were thus strangely inter- 
woven; Pate and Brown first met each other in battle at Black 
Jack, and encountered Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart three days 
later, when Pate's men were set free. Stuart and Brown met 
again in the Harper's Ferry raid, and Pate visited his old 
captor in jail shortly thereafter. They could not have fore- 
seen that there would be three acts in all to their public ap- 
pearance; or that all were to perish violently within eight 
years, two of them after having won for themselves imper- 
ishable renown, the one by reason of his death on the scaffold, 
the other because of military achievements which have placed 
him in the front rank of American cavalry leaders. There 
could be no clearer illustration than the meeting of these 
men of the direct relation of *' Bleeding Kansas" to Harper's 
Ferry and to the national convulsion of 1861 to 1865. Kansas 
was but the prelude; what more natural than that some of 
the actors who appeared in the prologue should hold the cen- 
tre of the stage in the later acts of the greatest drama of the 
nineteenth century? 

Members of the startled Prairie City congregation were 
eager to leave at once in search of Pate, particularly because 
the sons of a preacher named Moore, who had been captured 
near Westport the day before and taken off, learned now that 
their father was in Pate's camp. Brown counselled, more 
wisely, that the night be awaited and the enemy assailed at 
sunrise. About forty men volunteered to go as the Prairie 



202 JOHN BROWN 

City Rifles, but their numbers dwindled rapidly as the distance 
to the enemy decreased. At daylight on June 2 Brown's men 
were fed, and at sunrise they were dismounted at the Black 
Jack oaks, Frederick Brown being left in charge of the 
horses. 2° A half mile distant was Pate's camp, the covered 
wagons in front, then the tents, and then, on higher ground 
to the rear, the picketed horses and mules. A Missouri 
sentinel fired the first shot. As to what happened thereafter, 
there is a mass of testimony. Henry Clay Pate, in a rare 
pamphlet published in New York in 1859,^^ has given his side 
of the story. John Brown described the whole "battle" in a 
letter to his family dated "near Brown's Station, June, 1856." 
Both Pate and Brown discussed the fight at length in the 
Tribune of June 13 and July 11 respectively, and Brown's 
Tribune letter, hitherto entirely overlooked by his various 
biographers, must be taken as the final word in settling sev- 
eral long-disputed points. Besides the principal actors, Lieu- 
tenant Brockett, Bondi, Owen Brown, Henry Thompson, 
Salmon Brown and the preacher Moore, who was Pate's 
prisoner, have recorded their recollections of the conflict. 

In his letter to his family John Brown thus outlines the 
skirmish : 

"As I was much older than Captain Shore, the principal direction 
of the fight devolved on me. We got to within about a mile of their 
camp before being discovered by their scouts, and then moved at 
a brisk pace, Captain Shore and men forming our left, and my com- 
pany the right. When within about sixty rods of the enemy, Cap- 
tain Shore's men halted by mistake in a very exposed situation, 
and continued the fire, both his men and the enemy being armed 
with Sharpe's rifles. My company had no long-shooters. We (my 
company) did not fire a gun until we gained the rear of a bank, 
about fifteen or twenty rods to the right of the enemy, where we 
commenced, and soon compelled them to hide in a ravine. Cap- 
tain Shore, after getting one man wounded, and exhausting his 
ammunition, came with part of his men to the right of my posi- 
tion, much discouraged. The balance of his men, including the 
one wounded, had left the ground. Five of Captain Shore's men 
came boldly down and joined my company, and all but one man, 
wounded, helped to maintain the fight until it was over. I was 
obliged to give my consent that he should go after more help, when 
all his men left but eight, four of whom I persuaded to remain in 
a secure position, and there busied one of them in shooting the 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 203 

horses and mules of the enemy, which served for a show of fight. 
After the firing had continued for some two or three hours, Cap- 
tain Pate with twenty-three men, two badly wounded, laid down 
their arms to nine men, myself included, — four of Captain Shore's 
men and four of my own. One of my men (Henry Thompson) was 
badly wounded, and after continuing his fire for an hour longer was 
obliged to quit the ground. Three others of my company (but not 
of my family) had gone ofif. Salmon was dreadfully wounded by 
accident, soon after the fight; but both he and Henry are fast recov- 
ering." ^^ 

Captain Pate always alleged that he had been taken pris- 
oner by John Brown by trickery and treachery, when under 
a flag of truce, "3. barbarity unlooked for in this country, 
and unheard of in the annals of honorable warfare." But 
Pate admits on the same page that his object in using the 
flag of truce was "to gain time, and if possible have hostilities 
suspended for a while." 

"With this view," he says, "a flag of truce was sent out and an 
interview with the captain requested. Captain Brown advanced and 
sent for me. I approached him and made known the fact that I 
was acting under the orders of the U. S. Marshal and was only in 
search of persons for whom writs of arrest had been issued, and 
that I wished to make a proposition. He replied that he would hear 
no proposals, and that he wanted an unconditional surrender. I 
asked for fifteen minutes to answer. He refused. . . . Had I known 
whom I was fighting I would not have trusted to a flag of truce. 
The enemy's men were then marched up to within fifty paces of 
mine and I placed before them. Captain Brown commanded me to 
order my company to lay down their arms. Putting a revolver to 
my breast he repeated the command, giving me one or two minutes 
to make the order. He might have shot me; his men might have 
riddled me, but I would not have given the order for a world, much 
less my poor life." "^ 

His company, he explains, saved his life by voluntarily 
laying down their arms. There is more braggadocio, and 
also the admission that "there Is another consolation for me, 
If I showed the white feather at Black Jack, namely: they 
who fight and run away shall live to fight another day," — 
which was surely a correct prophecy. But he admits that at 
Black Jack he resorted to the flag of truce because he saw — 
what no one else did — that "reinforcements for the Aboll- 



204 JOHN BROWN 

tionists were near and that the fight would be desperate, and 
if they persisted not one would be left to tell the tale of car- 
nage that must follow." 

To Pate's allegations John Brown replied thus in the Trib- 
une of July II, 1856: 

Lawrence, K. T., Tuesday, July i, 1856. 

I have just read in the Tribune of June 13, an article from the pen 
of Capt. H. C. Pate, headed "The Battle of Black Jack Point," 
(in other words the battle of Palmyra), and take the liberty of cor- 
recting a very few of Capt. Pate's statements in reference to that 
affair, having had personal cognizance of what then occurred. The 
first statement I would notice is in these words: "At first the enemy 
squatted down in open prairie and fired at a distance from 300 to 
400 yards from us. Their lines were soon broken and they hastily 
ran to a ravine for shelter." This is wrong, as my company forrned 
a distinct line from Capt. Shore and his men, and without stopping 
to fire a gun passed at once into a ravine on the enemy's right, 
where we commenced our fire on them, and where we remained till 
the enemy hoisted the white flag. I expected Capt. Shore to form 
his men and occupy a similar position on the left of the enemy, JDUt 
was disappointed, he halting on the eastern slope above the ravine, 
in front of the enemy's camp. This I consider as the principal mis- 
take in our part of the action, as Capt. Shore was unable to retain 
this unfortunate position: and when he, with part of his men left 
it and joined my company, the balance of his company quit the field 
entirely. One of them was wounded and disabled. Capt. Shore 
and all his men, I believe, had for a considerable time kept that 
position, and received the fire of the enemy like the best regular 
troops (to their praise I would say it) and until they had to a con- 
siderable extent exhausted their ammunition. Capt. Pate says: 
"When the fight commenced our forces were nearly equal." I here 
say most distinctly, that twenty-six officers and men all told, was 
the entire force on the Free State side who were on the ground at 
all during the fight or in any way whatever participated in it. Of 
these Capt. Shore and his company numbered sixteen all told. My 
company, ten only, including myself. Six of these were of my own 
family. He says further, "but I saw reenforcements for the Aboli- 
tionists were near," &c. Capt. Pate, it seems, could see much better 
than we; for we neither saw nor received any possible reenforce- 
ments until some minutes after the surrender, nor did we under- 
stand that any help was near us, and at the time of the surrender 
our entire force, officers and men, all told, had dwindled down to 
but fifteen men, who were either on or about the field. Capt. Shore 
and his men had all left the field but eight. One of his men who had 
left was wounded and was obliged to leave. Of the eight who re- 
mained four, whose names I love to repeat, stood nobly by four of 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 205 

my men until the fight was over. The other four had, with two of 
my company, become disheartened and gone to a point out of reach 
of the enemy's fire, where, by the utmost exertion, I had kept them 
to make a little show, and busied one of them in shooting mules 
and horses to divert the others and keep them from running off. 
One of my men had been terribly wounded and left, after holding 
on for an hour afterward. Fifteen Free State men, all told, were all 
that remained on and near the ground at the time the surrender 
was made; and it was made to nine men only, myself included in 
that number. Twenty-five of the enemy, including two men terribly 
wounded, were made prisoners. Capt. Pate reproaches me with 
the most dishonorable violation of the rights secured under a flag 
of truce, but says: "My object was to gain time, and if possible have 
hostilities suspended for a while." So much, in his own language, 
for good faith, of which he found me so destitute. Now for my own 
dishonorable violation of the flag of truce: When I first saw it I had 
just been to the six discouraged men above named, and started at 
once to meet it, being at that moment from sixty to eighty rods 
from the enemy's camp, and met it about half way carried by two 
men, one a Free State man, a prisoner of theirs; the other was young 
Turner, of whom Capt. Pate speaks in such high terms. I think 
him as brave as Capt. Pate represents. Of his disposition and char- 
acter in other respects I say nothing now. The country and the 
world may probably know more hereafter. I at once learned from 
those bearing the flag of truce that in reality they had no other 
design than to divert me and consume time by getting me to go to 
their camp to hear explanations. I then told young James to stand 
by me with his arms, saying, "We are both equally exposed to the 
fire of both parties," and sent their prisoner back to tell the Cap- 
tain that, if he had any proposal to make, to come at once and make 
it. He also came armed to where I and young James were — some 
forty or fifty rods from either party and I alone. He immediately 
began to tell about his authority from the General Government, by 
way of explanation, as he said. I replied that I should listen to no- 
thing of that kind, and that, if he had any proposal to make, I would 
hear it at once, and that, if he had none for me, I had one for him, 
and that was immediate and unconditional surrender. I then said 
to him and young James, (both well armed,) "You must go down 
to your camp, and there all of you lay down your arms," when the 
three started, they continuing armed until the full surrender was 
made. I, an old man, of nearly sixty years, and fully exposed to the 
weapons of two young men at my side, as well as the fire of their 
men in their camp, so far, and no further, took them prisoners 
under their flag of truce. On our way to their camp, as we passed 
within hailing distance of the eight men, who had kept their posi- 
tion firm, I directed them to pass down the ravine in front of the 
enemy's camp, about twenty rods off, to receive the surrender. Such 
was my violation of the flag of truce. Let others judge. I had not 



206 JOHN BROWN 

during the time of the above transactions with Capt. Pate and his 
flag of truce a single man secreted near me who could have possibly 
have pointed a rifle at Capt. Pate, nor a man nearer than forty rods 
till we came near their camp. Capt. Pate complains of our treat- 
ment in regard to cooking, &c, but forgets to say that, after the fight 
was over, when I and some of my men had eaten only once in nearly 
forty-eight hours, we first of all gave Capt. Pate and his men as 
good a dinner as we could obtain for them, I being the last man to 
take a morsel. During the time we kept them it was with difficulty 
I could keep enough men in camp away from their business and 
their families to guard our prisoners; I being myself obliged to stand 
guard six hours — between four in the afternoon and six in the 
morning. We were so poorly supplied with provisions that the best 
we could possibly do was to let our prisoners use their own provi- 
sions; and as for tents, we, for the most part, had none, while we 
sent a team and brought in theirs, which they occupied exclusively. 
Capt. Pate and his men had burned or carried off my own tent, 
where one of my sons lived, with all its contents, provisions &c, 
some four or five days before the fight. We did not search our pris- 
oners, nor take from them one cent of their money, a watch, or any- 
thing but arms, horses, and military stores. I would ask Capt. Pate 
and his men how our people fared at their hands at Lawrence, 
Osawattamie, Brown's Station, and elsewhere, my two sons, John, 
jr., and Jason Brown, being of the number? We never had, at any 
time, near Capt. Pate, or where his men were, to exceed half the 
number he states. We had only three men wounded in the fight, 
and all of those have nearly recovered, and not one killed or since 
dead. See his statement. I am sorry that a young man of good ac- 
quirements and fair abilities should, by his own statement, know- 
ingly and wilfully made, do himself much greater injury than he 
even accuses "Old Brown" of doing him. He is most welcome to 
all the satisfaction which his treatment of myself and family before 
the fight, his polite and gentlemanly return for my own treatment 
of himself and his men have called forth since he was a prisoner, 
and released by Col. Sumner, can possibly afford to his honorable 
and ingenuous mind. I have also seen a brief notice of this affair 
by Lieutenant Brockett, and it affords me real satisfaction to say 
that I do not see a single sentence in it that is in the least degree 
characterized by either direct or indirect untruthfulness. I will 
add that when Capt. Pate's sword and pistols were taken from him 
at his camp, he particularly requested me to take them into my own 
care, which I did, and returned them to him when Col. Sumner took 
him and his men from us. I subjoin a copy of an agreement made 
with Capt. Shore and myself by Capt. Pate and his Lieutenant 
Brocket, in regard to exchange of prisoners taken by both parties, 
which agreement Col. Sumner did not require the Pro-Slavery 
party to comply with. A good illustration of governmental pro- 
tection to the people of Kansas from the first: 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 207 

(Copy) 

This is an article of agreement between Captains John Brown, 
sen., and Samuel T. Shore of the first part, and Capt. H. C. Pate 
and Lieut. W. B. Brocket of the second part, and witnesses, that 
in consideration of the fact that the parties of the first part have 
a number of Capt. Pate's company prisoners that they agree to 
give up and fully liberate one of their prisoners for one of those 
lately arrested near Stanton, Osawattamie, and Potawatamie and 
so on, one of the former for one of the latter alternately until 
all are liberated. It is understood and agreed by the parties that 
the sons of Capt. John Brown, sen, Capt. John Brown, jr., and 
Jason Brown, are to be among the liberated parties (if not already 
liberated), and are to be exchanged for Capt. Pate and Lieut. 
Brocket respectively. The prisoners are to be brought on neutral 
ground and exchanged. It is agreed that the neutral ground shall 
be at or near the house of John T. or Ottawa Jones of this Terri- 
tory, and that those who have been arrested, and have been liber- 
ated, will be considered in the same light as those not liberated, 
but they must appear in person or answer in writing that they 
are at liberty. The arms, particularly the side arms, of each one 
exchanged, are to be returned with the prisoners, also the horses 
so far as practicable. 

(Signed) 

John Brown, 
S. T. Shore, 
H. C. Pate, 
W. B. Brocket. 
Prairie City, Kansas Ter'y. June 2, a. d., 1856. 

Captain Pate, after his interview with Brown in jail at 
Charlestown, to which he had three witnesses, obtained their 
signatures to an account of the Black Jack fight which in some 
respects is obviously erroneous; in it he endeavors to repre- 
sent that John Brown admitted that the flag of truce was vio- 
lated. LTnfortunately for Pate's reputation as a chronicler, his 
pamphlet is frankly partisan. Moreover, there were several 
witnesses who testified that Pate ordered his men to lay down 
their arms, instead of risking death by silence, as he avers. 

The crux of the " battle" of Black Jack came when John 
Brown ordered Shore's men to shoot Pate's horses and mules. 
As soon as he noticed this going on, Frederick Brown, who had 
been left behind with the horses, could no longer contain him- 
self in inactivity, but, mounting one of the animals and bran- 
dishing his sword, rode around Pate's camp with his horse at 



2o8 JOHN BROWN 

a run, crying out, " Father, we have got them surrounded and 
have cut off their communications!" Frederick Brown was a 
large man, and on this occasion he acted in such a wild manner 
as to give rise to the charge that he was not of sound mind. 
His extraordinary appearance undoubtedly frightened Pate's 
men, who naturally believed that he had other men behind 
him and that they were really surrounded. They fired a num- 
ber of shots at him in vain, and it was only a few minutes after 
this that they raised the flag of truce and the firing ceased. It 
is interesting to note that among those who ran away with 
Shore's men was James Townsley, the first to tell the story of 
the Pottawatomie murders. Pate's Free Soil prisoners were of 
course at once released by John Brown, after having been 
under fire throughout the engagement, which ended between 
one and two o'clock. Among them, besides the preacher Moore, 
was a Dr. Graham, who had been shot through the leg in en- 
deavoring to escape. He was not sufficiently hurt, however, to 
prevent his attending to the wounded, of whom Henry Thomp- 
son was the most seriously injured. After the battle. Shore's 
men returned, and with them the company known as the Law- 
rence "Stubbs," under Captain J. B. AlDbott, a well-known 
Lawrence fighter, who had marched as rapidly as possible in 
order to succor Brown. Owen Brown estimates that this rein- 
forcement amounted to one hundred and fifty men, and in this 
he is probably not far wrong. As John Brown himself put it : 

"After the fight, numerous Free State men who could not be got 
out before were on hand; and some of them I am ashamed to add, 
were very busy not only with the plunder of our enemies, but with 
our private effects, leaving us, while guarding our prisoners and 
providing in regard to them, much poorer than before the battle."^* 

"We were taken," records Pate, "to a camp on Middle Ot- 
tawa Creek and closely guarded. We had to cook for ourselves, 
furnish provisions, and sleep on the ground, but we were not 
treated unkindly. Here we remained for three days and nights, 
until Colonel Sumner at the head of a company of Dragoons 
released us from our imprisonment." ^^ 

Colonel Sumner officially reported from Leavenworth, on 
June 5, his rescue of Pate's command, and his heading off 
about two hundred and fifty men under General Whitfield 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 209 

and General Coffee, of the militia, who, as we have already 
seen from Whitfield's letter, were bent on rescuing Captain 
Pate. Colonel Sumner's force was only fifty men. With him 
were Major Sedgwick and Lieutenant Stuart, who thus met 
Pate and Brown. Colonel Sumner records the prompt dispersal 
of Brown's men, and his surprise at finding General Whit- 
field, a Member of Congress, and General Coffee, of the Militia, 
at the head of the advancing Border Ruffians. He informed 
them that he was there, 

"by order of the President, and the proclamation of the Governor, 
to disperse all armed bodies assembled without authority; and fur- 
ther, that my duty was perfectly plain, and would certainly be done. 
I then requested General Coffee to assemble his people, and I read 
to them the President's despatch and the governor's proclamation. 
The general then said that he should not resist the authority of the 
general government, and that his party would disperse, and shortly 
afterwards they moved off. Whether this is a final dispersion of these 
lawless armed bodies, is very doubtful. If the proclamation of the 
Governor had been issued six months earlier, and had been rightly 
maintained, these difficulties would have been avoided. As the mat- 
ter now stands, there is great danger of a serious commotion.""'^ 

Major Sedgwick recorded the dispersal of Brown's band in 
the following words: 

"Things are getting worse everyday, and it is hard to foresee the 
result. One of these things must happen: either it will terminate 
in civil war or the vicious will band themselves together to plunder 
and murder all whom they meet. The day after writing my last 
letter I started with a squadron of cavalry to go about forty miles 
to break up an encampment of free-soilers who had been robbing 
and taking prisoners any pro-slavery man they could meet. I pro- 
ceeded to the place, and when within a short distance two of their 
principal men came out and wanted to make terms. They were told 
that no terms would be made with lawless and armed men, but 
that they must give up their prisoners and disperse at once. We 
marched into their camp, situated on a small island and entrenched, 
and found about one hundred and fifty men and twenty prisoners, 
who were released and the men dispersed.""^ 

It was John Brown himself who came out and endeav- 
ored to negotiate with the forces of the United States as if 
he were in control of a coordinate body. It was he, too, who 
had insisted on the camp's being so heavily entrenched. On 
June 3 he had directed the pillaging of the store of one J. M. 



210 JOHN BROWN 

Bernard at Centropolis, he being a pro-slavery sympathizer, in 
order, Brown's devoted follower Bondi declared: 

"to improve our exterior, the Brown outfit being altogether in rags. 
Frederick and Oliver Brown and three members of the Stubbs were 
the raiding party. They returned with some palm-leaf hats, check 
shirts, linen coats, a few linen pants, and bandanna handkerchiefs.""^ 

To the victors belonged the spoils. Since it was now "war" 
in deadly earnest, the raiding of the country for supplies was, 
in John Brown's opinion, wholly justified, as had already been 
the ''impressing" of pro-slavery horses. Within one hour sub- 
sequent to the interview between Sumner and Brown, re- 
ported Bondi, Camp Brown had ceased to exist, and this hast}^ 
movement was not delayed by Salmon Brown's accidentally 
shooting himself in the right shoulder. Subsequently, Colonel 
Sumner was severely criticised by the pro-slavery men for not 
having arrested Brown. He had, however, no warrants for 
anybody's arrest, and there was with his command a deputy 
United States marshal, William J. Preston by name. The lat- 
ter seems to have been afraid, even in the presence of troops, 
to serve the warrants he had with him.^^ Salmon Brown 
and Henry Thompson testify that Colonel Sumner told John 
Brown that Preston had warrants and that they would be 
served in his presence. Then he ordered Preston to proceed. 
"I do not recognize any one for whom I have warrants," re- 
plied the deputy marshal. "Then what are you here for?" 
asked Colonel Sumner indignantly.^" 

The Brown family did not move far after being ordered 
to disperse. The wounded Salmon was taken to Carpenter's 
near-by cabin and nursed by Bondi ; the others, with Weiner, 
camped in a thicket about half a mile from the abandoned 
Camp Brown. On June 8 Bondi rejoined them, Salmon being 
no longer in need of his services, and was at once asked to visit 
John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, then prisoners in Captain 
Wood's near-by camp. At their request Bondi visited the 
Adairs and found the Brown women safe at the residence of 
David Garrison, a neighbor. On Thursday, June lo, Bondi 
had returned to John Brown, and at a council held that day 
it was agreed to separate. Weiner had business in Louisiana; 
Henry Thompson was also taken to Carpenter's cabin, and 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 211 

Bondi accompanied Weiner as far as Leavenworth on the lat- 
ter's way to St. Louis. He then returned to the seat of war. 
John Brown and his unwounded sons remained hidden in the 
thickets. 

Governor Shannon, on hearing of the Black Jack episode, 
reported it to President Pierce as a sign of the unrest of the Ter- 
ritory, with a comment that could hardly have gratified Cap- 
tain Pate, for it charged him with being " at the head of an un- 
authorized company." ^i This weak Governor was not having 
a particularly easy time of it. The Territory was seething with 
lawlessness. The administration at Washington was getting 
restless in view of the outburst of anger in the North over the 
sacking of Lawrence. Indeed, on May 23, before the news of 
this raid had reached Washington, President Pierce sent two 
despatches ^^ to Governor Shannon which betray his extreme 
nervousness. He wished to know if it was true that Marshal 
Donaldson was near Lawrence, if it had been necessary to 
use troops to enforce writs, and, if so, whether other forces 
besides those of Sumner and Lieut.-Col. Cooke, of the Dra- 
goons, had been called in. In his second despatch he urged 
Governor Shannon to "repress lawless violence in whatever 
form it may manifest itself," and it was this despatch which 
Colonel Sumner read to General Whitfield, together with Shan- 
non's proclamation commanding "all persons belonging to 
military organizations within this Territory, not authorized 
by the laws thereof, to disperse and retire peaceably to their 
respective abodes," under penalty of being dispersed by the 
United States troops. Shannon further ordered ^^ that all law- 
abiding citizens, without regard to party names and distinc- 
tions, should be protected in their persons and property, and 
that "all aggressing parties from without the Territory must 
be repelled." It is only fair to Shannon to add that he made 
requisitions for sufficient United States troops, and urged upon 
their commanders that the country to the south of Lawrence 
be properly protected. When Shannon's proclamation was 
two days old. President Pierce again telegraphed to the Gov- 
ernor : ' ' Maintain the laws firmly and impartially, and take care 
that no good citizen has just ground to complain of the want 
of protection." 34 

Despite these admonitions and the activity of the troops. 



212 JOHN BROWN 

the disorders continued. Early in the morning of the 5th of 
June, Major Abbott, with his Wakarusa company of Free State 
men and a body of Lawrence youths, assailed Franklin, four 
and a half miles from Lawrence, where were some Missourians 
charged with being members of the Law and Order party and 
with having amassed considerable plunder. ^^ It was, in the eyes 
of the Free State men, a "mischievous camp." The pro-slavery 
men, who had one man killed and several wounded, defended 
themselves with a cannon, but inflicted no loss on their assail- 
ants. The Wakarusa company arrived too late to take part 
in the fighting, and busied itself in levying on the stores of the 
pro-slavery men, loading a wagon with all the rifles, powder, 
caps, flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, etc., that could be found. They 
made Franklin, says Andreas, "too hot for the enemy, and 
compelled them to evacuate." It is interesting to note that 
this and similar robberies by Free State men were treated in 
the Northern press and by subsequent historians as absolutely 
proper and legitimate acts of war, while similar outrages on 
the part of the pro-slavery forces were pictured as too terrible to 
be borne. Thus Bondi relates that the final pro-slavery wrong- 
doing, which led John Brown to leave his camp and march after 
Pate, was the entering of a Free State house by three of Pate's 
men and their stealing the guns of the seven Free Soilers who 
occupied it. " It was impossible," says Bondi, " to put up with 
such a shameful outrage," ^e — especially so for the men who 
bore the guilt of the Pottawatomie murders. Later on in his 
reminiscences, Bondi relates with great gusto how he and his 
companions, when in need of fresh meat, sought out "Dutch 
Henry" Sherman's herd of cattle and killed what they needed 
without asking any one's permission. This was, of course, a 
justifiable act of war, in his opinion. The dispersal of Free 
State forces by Federal troops was always an outrage ; similar 
treatment of the pro-slavery bands, just and proper. 

Two days after the Free State attack on Franklin, Whit- 
field's men, returning to Missouri, reached Osawatomie just 
after Major Sedgwick, with a company of dragoons, had left 
it on his return to Fort Leavenworth. They seized the oppor- 
tunity to take revenge for the Pottawatomie murders. Every 
house was entered and pillaged, women being robbed^ even 
of earrings, and fourteen horses were stolen," thus justifying 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 213 

Colonel Sumner's fears as to the genuineness of Whitfield's 
promise to disperse his men. That anything was left standing 
was due to fear that United States troops might appear. After 
an hour and a half of terrorizing women and children and the 
few men left at home, Whitfield's forces moved on, laden with 
booty, and finally disbanded on reaching Westport. As this 
town lies to the northeast of Prairie City, and Osawatomie far 
to the southeast, it is obvious that Whitfield deliberately dis- 
obeyed Sumner's instructions to leave the Territory, and went 
out of his way to revenge upon the Free State settlement at 
Osawatomie the Pottawatomie murders that were the original 
reason for his and Pate's entry into Kansas. Sumner was nat- 
urally indignant, so the Tribune reported on June 23, when 
he heard of Whitfield's breach of faith; but the mischief was 
then done, and Whitfield doubled on his tracks and returned 
safely to Westport. This Whitfield raid, while unaccompa- 
nied by loss of life, by itself wholly disposes of the conten- 
tion of James Freeman Clarke and others that after John 
Brown's murders "the country had peace." Certainly it is 
plain proof that the killings of the Doyles, Sherman and Wil- 
kinson, far from stopping the aggressiveness of the Border 
Ruffians, brought down their especial vengeance upon Brown's 
Free State neighbors. 

Even before they plundered Osawatomie, Whitfield's men 
were credited with one of the worst crimes of this bloody 
period. They had tried one Cantrall, a Missourian, on the 
charge of "treason to Missouri," for sympathizing with and 
aiding the Free State forces at Black Jack, although he was not 
an actual participant in the engagement. After a mock court- 
martial, Cantrall was taken into a near-by ravine. Other pris- 
oners of Whitfield reported afterAvards that there was a "shot, 
followed by the cry, 'O God! I am shot! I am murdered.' 
Then there was another shot followed by a long scream ; then 
another shot and all was silent." One of the prisoners escaped 
and told this story, and the body was found in the ravine with 
three bullet-holes in the breast. ^^ Lieut.-Col. Philip St. George 
Cooke, commanding the Second Dragoons, the other Federal 
regiment in Kansas, reported officially on June 18 that "the 
disorders in the Territory have, in fact, changed their charac- 
ter, and consist now of robberies and assassinations, by a set 



214 JOHN BROWN 

of bandits whom the excitement of the times has attracted 
hither."^* W. A. Phillips, one of the best of the contempo- 
rary chroniclers, wrote that during the period between the 
Pottawatomie murders and June i8, 

"proslavery parties stealthily prowled through the territory or 
hung upon the Missouri borders. Outrages were so common that 
it would be impossible to enumerate them. Murders were frequent, 
many of them passing secretly and unrecorded ; some of them only 
revealed by the discovery of some mouldering remains of mortality. 
Two men, found hanging on a tree near Westport, ill-fated free- 
state settlers, were taken down and buried by the troops; but so 
shallow was the grave that the prairie wolves dug them up and 
partly devoured them, before they were again found and buried." *° 

Lieutenant James Mcintosh, First Cavalry, reported on 
June 13, from Palmyra, that a great many robberies were being 
committed on the various roads, and one detachment of his 
men reported to him that at Cedar Creek, twenty-five miles 
away, 

" several men were lying murdered. They saw the body of one who 
they knew from his dress to be a Mr. Carter, who was taken pris- 
oner from this place a few nights ago. This body was shown to them 
by a member of one of the companies who was under the influence 
of liquor, and who told my men that he could point out the other 
abolitionists if they wished to see them." ^^ 

O. C. Brown, the founder of Osawatomie, wrote on June 
24, 1856, that for thirty days (since Pottawatomie) there had 
been a "reign of terror." 

"Hundreds of men," he declared, "have come from Missouri, and 
the Southern and pauper crowd that live by plunder are hunting 
down the supposed murderers at Pottawatomie. But almost daily 
murders are committed near Westport and nothing done." He 
added: "Keep us in flour and bacon and we can stand it a good pull 
longer. . . . Remember that now, now, now, is the time to render 
us aid.""' 

There is other contemporary testimony to the straits to 
which John Brown's act reduced Osawatomie. 

Free Soilers in numbers were stopped and turned out of 
the Territory when caught near the border. One John A. 
Baillie was shot and badly injured, besides being robbed of 
his possessions.*^ A young man named Hill was similarly 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 215 

robbed, and then bound and barbarously gagged. ''■' Another 
victim of Border Ruffian fury was strung up to a tree only 
to be let down again. The list of murders runs all through 
the summer. A young Free Soil Kentuckian named Hopkins 
was deliberately killed in Lawrence on June 16 by a deputy 
sheriff named Haine, or Haynau, a notorious bully." William 
Gay, an Indian Agent, was murdered two miles from West- 
port, on June 21, by three strangers, who blazed away at him 
as soon as they discovered, after drinking with him, that he 
was from Michigan. "« Laben Parker was shot, stabbed and 
hanged, his dangling body being found July 24, eleven miles 
from Tecumseh, with this placard upon it: "Let all those 
who are going to vote against slavery take warning ! " ^^ Major 
David S. Hoyt, formerly of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was 
killed August 1 1 , on his return to Lawrence from the Georgian 
camp on Washington Creek, which he had entered on a mis- 
sion of peace. A corrosive acid was thrown upon his face, and 
his body, half-buried, was torn by wild beasts. His object 
had been to ask that the Georgians join the people of Law- 
rence in stopping just such crimes. ^^ 

But the worst of all this terrible list of inhuman outrages, 
the one that infuriated the Free State men beyond all else, 
was the killing, on August 17, of William Hoppe, a brother- 
in-law of the Rev. Ephraim Nute, the Unitarian minister of 
Lawrence. Hoppe was shot in his buggy, when within two 
miles of Leavenworth, by a follower of General Atchison, 
named Fugit or Fugert.*^ This wretch had made a bet of six 
dollars to a pair of boots that he would go out and return 
with the scalp of an Abolitionist within two hours. He asked 
but one question of his victim. When Hoppe replied that he 
was from Lawrence, Fugit shot him and scalped him, with 
an Indian's dexterity, without waiting even to ascertain if 
Hoppe was dead. Brandishing the bloody scalp, Fugit rode 
back and received his boots. In May, 1857, he was arrested 
at Leavenworth and acquitted of the charge of murder! For 
downright atrocities committed on individuals, the pro-slavery 
men were infinitely worse than the Free State, even remem- 
bering the Pottawatomie killings. 

There were, however, plenty of Free State guerrillas at 
work. Charles Lenhart and John E. Cook (who later perished 



2i6 JOHN BROWN 

on the scaffold at Charlestown) were members of a well- 
mounted body of "cavalry scouts" of about twenty young 
men who ranged about the country. ^° The stealing of cattle 
and horses went on fearlessly on both sides. ^^ "The substance 
of the Territory is devoured by the roving, roystering bands 
of guerrilla fighters who, under the plea that war prevails, per- 
petrate deeds of robbery, rapine, slaughter and pillage that 
nothing can justify," reported the St. Louis Evening News 
early in June. It added that the "body of good citizens, once 
numerous in the Territory, who sided with neither party, 
but attended to their own affairs, regardless of the issue of 
the dispute, is not now to be found. Every man has been 
compelled to join one party or the other, and to become active 
in its behalf." This referred, of course, both to the Free Soil- 
ers and to the non-slaveholding pro-slavery men who wished 
to mind their own business. "All over the Territory," the 
Evening News truthfully said, "along the roadside, houses 
are deserted and farms abandoned, and nowhere are there 
visible evidences of industry." ^^ fj^g Boonsville, Missouri, 
Observer was of the opinion that "unless the United States 
Government rigorously interposes its authority in behalf of 
peace and order, the horrors of civil war will rage on, and 
we fear accumulate to such an extent as to imperil the 
Union. "53 

The pro-slavery circular of June 21, signed by Atchison, 
Buford and Stringfellow, presented the Southern view of the 
situation thus: 

"The [Pottawatomie] outrages above specified were preceded, 
and up to the present time have been followed by others of a like 
character, and dictated by a like settled policy on the part of our 
enemies to harrass and frighten by their deeds of horror, our friends 
from their homes in the Territory. Undoubtedly this policy (a well 
settled party system) has dictated the notices lately given in all 
the disturbed districts, by armed marauding bands of abolition- 
ists, to the law and order men of their respective neighborhoods, 
immediately to leave the country on peril of death. Under such 
notices, our friends about Hickory Point and on Pottowatomie and 
Rock Creeks, have all been driven out of the Territory, their stores 
have been robbed, their cattle driven off, their houses burned, their 
horses stolen, and in some cases they have been assassinated for 
daring to return. Some, too, of these outrages, have been perpe- 
trated under the very nose of the United States troops, who all the 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 217 

while assure us that all is peace and quietness, and that they will 
afford ample protection, without the necessity of our banding to- 
gether in armed bodies for mutual defence." ^* 

This pro-slavery criticism of the United States troops is the 
more interesting because the Free Soil writers of the period 
also assail the regulars and accuse them of sympathizing 
with and abetting Border Ruffian outrages, while admitting 
that Colonel Sumner's and Major Sedgwick's leanings were 
toward the North. The latter fact probably had something 
to do with Colonel Sumner's going on leave on July 15, in the 
midst of the troubles, and his turning over the command to 
Brigadier-General Persifor F. Smith, who did not, however, 
take the field in person. Colonel Sumner's disrepute with the 
pro-slavery Pierce administration is very plain. In his annual 
report for 1856, Jefferson Davis pointedly praised Lieut.- 
Col. Cooke and avoided all mention of Colonel Sumner, 
beyond printing his (Davis's) censures of Colonel Sumner for 
having dispersed by force the Topeka Free State Legislature, 
in harmony with the proclamation of acting Governor Wood- 
son," and positive instructions from Governor Shannon to 
use force if necessary. ^^ Colonel Sumner did not again fig- 
ure prominently in the Kansas troubles. If Pierce desired a 
scapegoat for the Kansas lawlessness. Colonel Sumner was 
the natural victim. It must be pointed out, however, that 
Colonel Sumner's and Lieut. -Col. Cooke's regiments would 
not have been large enough to patrol successfully all of east- 
ern Kansas, had they been of full strength. General Smith 
reported officially on August 22, that "Colonel Sumner's 
regiment cannot now muster four hundred men, including 
Captain Stewart's company, on its way to Fort Laramie, and 
a detachment under Lieutenant Wharton, en route for Fort 
Kearney with the Sioux prisoners. Lieut. -Col. Cooke's six 
companies have a little more than one hundred horses." " 

The breaking up of the Topeka or Free State Legislature 
Colonel Sumner declared to be the most trying episode of his 
long military career. ^^ Governor Shannon wrote to Colonel 
Sumner on June 23,^^ that he was compelled to leave the Ter- 
ritory for ten days, and that he wished him to use his com- 
mand in the most effective way for preserving peace, and to 
be sure to have two companies at Topeka on July 4. Shannon 



2i8 JOHN BROWN 

wrote also of his belief that if the Free State Legislature as- 
sembled on that date, it 

"would produce an outbreak more fearful by far in its conse- 
quences than any which we have heretofore witnessed. . . . Two 
governments cannot exist at one and the same time in this Terri- 
tory in practical operation; one or the other must be overthrown; 
and the struggle between the legal government established by Con- 
gress and that by the Topeka Constitution would result in a civil 
war, the fearful consequences of which no one can foresee. Should 
this body reassemble and enact laws (and they can have no other 
object in meeting), they will be an illegal body, threatening the 
peace of the whole country and therefore should be dispersed.'' 

This view Colonel Sumner shared, for he wrote to acting 
Governor Woodson on June 28, "I am decidedly of the opin- 
ion that that body of men ought not to be permitted to assem- 
ble. It is not too much to say that the peace of the country 
depends upon it." Mr. Woodson then issued his proclama- 
tion of July 4, forbidding all persons "claiming legislative 
powers and authorities . . . from assembling, organizing 
or attempting to organize or act in any legislative capacity 
whatever. ..." To this Colonel Sumner added over his 
own name these words: "The proclamation of the President 
and the order under it require me to sustain the Executive 
of the Territory in executing the laws and preserving the 
peace. I therefore hereby announce that I shall maintain the 
proclamation at all hazards." 

Colonel Sumner had been so completely under the orders 
of Governor Shannon that he believed himself wholly justified 
in carrying out Shannon's and Woodson's instructions, the 
latter being with him on July 4, and directing him by word 
of mouth. Moreover, Jefferson Davis, who had praised Colo- 
nel Sumner on May 23, for his zeal, had assured him in the 
same letter that it was his duty to maintain "the duly au- 
thorized government of the Territory," and added that "for 
the great purpose which justifies the employment of military 
force, it matters not whether the subversion of the law arises 
from a denial of the existence of the government " or from law- 
less disregard of the rights of persons or property. The Topeka 
Legislature was surely in itself a "denial of the existence 
of the government," but after the dispersal of the Topeka 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 219 

Legislature, Secretary Davis took, on August i'], the view 
that Colonel Sumner had exceeded his instructions, and disa- 
vowed the dispersal of the Legislature. To this rebuke Colonel 
Sumner respectfully replied that he felt bound to consider 
the Topeka Legislature insurrectionary, under the President's 
proclamation of February 11, and, therefore, was compelled 
to suppress it, particularly because, as he pointed out, the 
principal officers of the Topeka government were at that 
moment actually under arrest for high treason. 

But if the logic was on Colonel Sumner's side, the authority 
was on Jefferson Davis's; a scapegoat was wanted, and the 
veteran of thirty-seven years' service was at hand. Not un- 
naturally it was believed by the Free Soil men that Colonel 
Sumner's expressions of regret in disbanding the Legislature, 
and his friendliness for the North, were the real reasons for 
his being given leave, and for the censure passed upon him. 
A year later, a new Secretary of War was glad to entrust to 
Sumner the command of an important and successful cam- 
paign against the Cheyenne Indians. 

The actual dispersal of the Legislature was dramatic. In 
the absence of the Speaker and the Chief Clerk, Samuel F. 
Tappan, the Assistant Clerk, called the roll in the House of 
Representatives on July 4, to which date the Legislature had 
adjourned on March 4. Seventeen members answered to their 
names. As Tappan knew there were others in the town, he 
ordered the sergeant-at-arms to summon the rest. Colonel 
Sumner then rose and said : 

"Gentlemen: This is the most disagreeable duty of my whole 
life. My orders are to disperse the Legislature, and I am here to 
tell you that it must not meet, and to see it dispersed. God knows 
I have no partisan feelings in the matter, and I will have none so 
long as I hold my present position in Kansas. I have just returned 
from the border, where I have been driving out bands of Missou- 
rians, and now I am ordered here to disperse you. You must dis- 
perse. This body cannot be permitted to meet — Disperse. Let 
me again assure you that this is the most disagreeable duty of my 
whole life." "^^ 

He had taken ample military precautions, for he had con- 
centrated at Topeka, on Jul)^ 3, five companies of his regiment 
and two pieces of artillery. The proclamation of the acting 



220 JOHN BROWN 

Governor was first read to the crowd of about five hundred 
men, but Colonel Sumner's hope that this would suffice to pre- 
vent the meeting of the Legislature was vain ; he was forced to 
march his command into town, draw it up before the building 
in which the Legislature was meeting, and array it in the face 
of several Free State volunteer companies. These military 
manoeuvres deeply impressed the crowd, for Colonel Sumner's 
bearing, like that of his men, was eminently businesslike and 
soldierly. 

As Colonel Sumner rode away, so the Philadelphia North 
American s correspondent reported, 

"some one gave 'three cheers for Col. Sumner,' which was re- 
sponded to. Then there were three hearty cheers for John C. Fre- 
mont, three cheers for the Constitution and State Legislature, and 
just as the dragoons got the word of command, 'march,' three 
groans were given for Franklin Pierce, and the retreating squadron 
of dragoons moved off amid the deep groaning for the President." 

During all these exciting Topeka happenings, John Brown 
was not far away. He had remained in hiding on Ottawa 
Creek, near Palmyra, throughout June, awaiting the recovery 
of his sick and wounded sons, and gradually recruiting his 
band.^i Henry Thompson, in addition to his wound, suffered 
from bilious fever, and Owen Brown was also a fever victim. 
The invalid's chief nurse was Lucius Mills, a cousin, and John 
Brown looked in upon them from time to time, and aided when 
the country was clear of Border Ruffians and troops. Food 
they gathered where possible, the Carpenters, Ottawa Jones 
and other neighbors helping. Not until the beginning of July 
did John Brown terminate this life in the bush and again 
become active. On July 2 he boldly entered Lawrence and 
called upon the Tribune's correspondent, William A. Phil- 
lips. To him Brown stated that he was on his way to Topeka 
with his followers, to be on hand at whatever crisis might 
arise at the opening of the Legislature. "He was not in the 
habit," Colonel Phillips records, "of subjecting himself to the 
orders of anybody. He intended to aid the general result, but 
to do it in his own way." That evening Phillips started with 
John Brown's company, toward Topeka. They camped in the 
open, a mile southwest of Big Springs. At two o'clock A. M. 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 221 

on the 3d, they resumed the march, straight across country, 
regardless of streams and rough going. At sunrise they reached 
the Shunga-nung, heard Colonel Sumner's camp bugles, and 
John Brown halted in the timber by the creek, one of the men 
going with Phillips into town to bring back word when the 
company should be needed. "He [Brown] sent messages to 
one or two of the gentlemen in town, and, as he wrung my 
hand at parting, urged that we should have the Legislature 
meet and resist all who should interfere with it, and fight, if 
necessary, even the United States troops." 

Colonel Phillips has left, in the Atlantic Monthly for De- 
cember, 1879, a charming picture of that night ride and the 
conversation he had with Brown as they lay "bivouacking in 
the open beneath the stars:" 

"He seemed to be as little disposed to sleep as I was, and we 
talked; or rather he did, for I said little. I found that he was a 
thorough astronomer; he pointed out the different constellations 
and their movements. * Now,' he said, ' it is midnight,' as he pointed 
to the finger marks of his great clock in the sky. The whispering of 
the wind on the prairie was full of voices to him, and the stars as 
they shone in the firmament of God seemed to inspire him. 'How 
admirable is the symmetry of the heavens; how grand and beau- 
tiful! Everything moves in sublime harmony in the government 
of God. Not so with us poor creatures. If one star is more brilliant 
than others, it is continually shooting in some erratic way into 
space.' 

"He criticized both parties in Kansas. Of the proslavery men 
he said that slavery besotted everything, and made men more brutal 
and coarse; nor did the Free-State men escape his sharp censure. 
He said that we had many noble and true men, but too many 
broken-down politicians from the older States, who would rather 
pass resolutions than act, and who criticized all who did real work. 
A professional politician, he went on, you never could trust; for 
even if he had convictions, he was always ready to sacrifice his 
principles for his advantage. One of the most interesting things 
in his conversation that night, and one that marked him as a theo- 
rist, was his treatment of our forms of social and political life. He 
thought society ought to be organized on a less selfish basis; for 
while material interests gained something by the deification of pure 
selfishness, men and women lost much by it. He said that all great 
reforms, like the Christian religion, were based on broad, generous, 
self-sacrificing principles. He condemned the sale of land as a chat- 
tel, and thought that there was an infinite number of wrongs to right 
before society would be what it should be, but that in our country 



222 JOHN BROWN 

slavery was the 'sum of all villainies,' and its abolition the first 
essential work. If the American people did not take courage and 
end it speedily, human freedom and republican liberty would soon 
be empty names in these United States." 

How long John Brown remained at the Willets farm near 
Topeka, to which he now proceeded, and where he spent the 
next two or three weeks, is not known. He neither entered 
Topeka on the fateful July 4, nor immediately thereafter. It 
is probable that he returned promptly to the neighborhood of 
his sick sons, more than ever disgusted with Free State leaders 
and their inability to adopt his view that the way to fight was 
to "press to close quarters. "^^ On July 26, John Brown, Jr., 
wrote from his Leavenworth prison to his father: 

"Am very glad that you have started as all things considered I 
am convinced you can be of more use where you contemplate going 
than here. My anxiety for your safe journey is very great. Hope 
that I shall yet see you all again. Where I shall go, if I get through 
this is more than I can tell, of one thing I feel sure now, and that 
is that I shall leave Kansas. I must get away from exciting scenes 
to some secluded region, or my life will be a failure. . . . The treat- 
ment I have received from the Free State party has wearied me of 
any further desire to cooperate with them. They, as a party, are 
guided by no principle but selfishness, and are withal most arrant 
cowards — they deserve their fate. . . ."^^ 

Four days later, John Brown, Jr., wrote to Jason Brown 
that his father and his party were at Topeka "a few days ago 
on their way to the States. They were supplied at Topeka with 
provisions for the trip and by this time I hope they have passed 
without the limits of the Territory." e'' The party comprised 
Owen, Oliver, Frederick and Salmon Brown, and their father, 
Henry Thompson, and Lucius Mills, for whom John Brown 
had little regard because he had no desire to fight and was con- 
tent to play the nurse and doctor. Salmon Brown states that 
they left because Lucius Mills insisted on the invalids' being 
moved, and because they were a drag on the fighting men. In 
their hot, primitive quarters, in which the flies were a scourge, 
Owen had been reduced "almost to a skeleton," and Henry 
Thompson was not much better off, while Salmon himself was 
still a cripple. Henry Thompson afhrms that he, Oliver, Owen 
and Salmon had had enough of Kansas. They did not wish to 



CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 223 

fight any more. They felt that they had suffered enough, that 
the service they had been called upon to perform at Potta- 
watomie squared them with Duty. They were, they thought, 
entitled to leave further work to other hands. They were sick 
of fighting and trouble. The burden of Pottawatomie did not, 
however, weigh upon Salmon ; it was as an invalided soldier 
that he consented to leave. Jason Brown stayed at Osawatomie 
with his wife. John Brown himself never expressed an opinion 
as to his sons' resolution or their leaving Kansas. 

A heretofore unrelated incident of this journey is now set 
forth by Salmon Brown. Oliver Brown, a great, stout, strap- 
ping fellow, was forbidden by his father to give to Lucius Mills 
a fine revolver. Says Salmon Brown: 

"Oliver wanted to make him a present of a revolver that he [Oli- 
ver] had captured at Black Jack. Father objected; forbade Oliver 
to give Mills the pistol, saying that Mills would never use it. Oliver 
persisting. Father set out to take the pistol away from him by force. 
In the scuffle that ensued, I, alarmed lest the weapon might be 
accidentally discharged, took it out of Oliver's belt, saying: 'Now 
you fellows fight it out!' It looked foolish, to me. The pistol was 
Oliver's pistol. And the match was not an equal one. Father had 
been a strong man in his day, but his prime was past. Oliver was 
a splendid wrestler. Up in North Elba, he had thrown thirty lum- 
bermen one day, one after the other, in a big 'wrastle.' Father was 
like a child in his hands. And Oliver was determined. He grabbed 
Father by the arms and jammed him against the wagon. 'Let go 
of me!' said Father. 'Not till you agree to behave yourself,' said 
Oliver. And Father had to let him have his way."^^ 

On August 3 and 4, John Brown and those with him were 
overtaken by a party of Free State men who were marching 
north to the Nebraska line, to meet James H. Lane's Free 
State caravan and to protect it from the merciless Kickapoo 
Rangers, the murderers of Captain R. P. Brown. One of these 
volunteer guards, Samuel J. Reader, still a resident of Kansas, 
has transcribed from his journal the following impressions of 
his meeting with John Brown : ^^ 

"Between three and four o'clock we formed in marching column, 
and started forward at a swinging pace. We were all well rested, 
and a little tired of staying in camp. We had been on the road 
perhaps an hour or more when someone in front shouted, 'There 
he is!' Sure enough, it was Brown. Just ahead of us we saw the 



224 JOHN BROWN 

dingy old wagon-cover, and the two men, and the oxen, plodding 
slowly onward. Our step was increased to 'quick time;' and as we 
passed the old man, on either side of the road, we rent the air with 
cheers. If John Brown ever delighted in the praises of men, his 
pleasure must have been gratified, as he walked along, enveloped 
in our shouting column. But I fear he looked upon such things as 
vainglorious, for if he responded by word or act, I failed to hear 
it or see it. In passing I looked at him closely. He was rather tall, 
and lean, with a tanned, weather-beaten aspect in general. He 
looked like a rough, hard-working old farmer ; and I had known sev- 
eral such who pretty closely resembled Brown in many respects. 
He appeared to be unarmed ; but very likely had shooting irons 
inside the wagon. His face was shaven, and he wore a cotton shirt, 
partly covered by a vest. His hat was well worn, and his general 
appearance, dilapidated, dusty and soiled. He turned from his ox 
team and glanced at our party from time to time as we were pass- 
ing him. No doubt it was a pleasing sight to him to see men in 
armed opposition to the Slave Power." 

Mr. Reader, on this expedition, on August 7, was an eye- 
witness of the first meeting between John Brown and a 
remarkable man who subsequently became one of Brown's 
most trusted lieutenants, Aaron Dwight Stevens, who at that 
time went by the name of Captain Whipple, for the good rea- 
son that he had escaped from the military prison at Fort 
Leavenworth while serving a three years' sentence for taking 
part in a soldiers' mutiny at Don Fernandez de Taos, New 
Mexico, and resisting the authority of an officer of his regi- 
ment. Major G. A. H. Blake, of the First Dragoons.^^* 

John Brown himself did not set foot in low^a, but turned 
back at Nebraska City, on the Nebraska boundary, his invalids 
then being quite safe.^^ "Frederick turned and went back 
with his father," Henry Thompson testifies. "Frederick felt 
that Pottaw^atomie bound him to Kansas. He did not wish 
to leave. He felt that a great crime had been committed, and 
that he should go back into Kansas and live it out." It was 
a decision that cost him his life. 

* A myth that this officer was Captain James Longstreet, later the famous 
Confederate Lieutenant-General, persists in lives of Brown and sketches of A. D. 
Stevens. Captain Longstreet, at the time of Stevens's trial, was on duty with his 
regiment, the Eighth Infantry, in Texas, and does not figure in the court-martial 



CHAPTER VII 
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 

At Nebraska City, John Brown found a notable caravan. 
Under the erratic James Henry Lane, there had arrived at that 
point a body of several hundred Free State emigrants, many 
of whom had attempted to reach Kansas by the usual route of 
the Missouri River, only to learn that the chivalric Missouri- 
ans had barred that means of entrance. As early as June 20, 
1856, a party of seventy-five men from Chicago, understood 
to be the vanguard of the "army of the North" which Lane 
had been raising in Chicago and elsewhere, was forced to give 
up its arms on the steamer Star of the West, at Lecompton, 
Missouri, by a mob of Missourians headed by Colonel Joseph 
Shelby, later a prominent Confederate brigadier. At Kansas 
City, General Atchison, with another armed force, compelled 
the Northerners to stay on their boat and return to Illi- 
nois, an achievement about which the Border Ruffian press 
boasted loudly and long. ^ Thereafter parties of Northerners, 
on the steamers Sultan and Arabia and other river-craft, 
were similarly driven back, some even being robbed of their 
possessions. 2 By the 4th of July, the blockade of the river was 
complete; thereafter the Free State reinforcements were com- 
pelled to take the tedious and expensive overland trip from 
Iowa City, which was in railroad communication with Chi- 
cago, to Nebraska City, and thence southward through Ne- 
braska to Kansas. This route was opened by Lane, whose 
party finally comprised one hundred and twenty-five well- 
armed single men, and is said by most writers to have num- 
bered, all told, six hundred men, women and children when he 
reached the Kansas line. There General Lane found it desir- 
able to assume the name of "General Joe Cook." While in the 
East, General Lane had made a sensation by a most eloquent 
speech in behalf of Kansas, delivered at Chicago on the 31st 
of May, 1856.3 He made full use of the sacking of Lawrence 
and of the pro-slavery outrages in the Territory, and it was in 



226 JOHN BROWN 

large part to his eloquence that much of the heavy emigra- 
tion to Kansas in the summer and fall of 1856 was due. How 
great his oratorical powers were may be seen from a letter 
of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of September 18, 1856, 
now preserved in the collections of the Kansas Historical So- 
ciety: 

"Last night he [Lane] spoke in a school house; never did I hear 
such a speech ; every sentence like a pistol bullet ; such delicacy and 
lightness of touch; such natural art; such perfect adaptation; not 
a word, not a gesture, could have been altered ; he had every nerve 
in his audience at the end of his muscles; not a man in the United 
States could have done it ; and the perfect ease of it all, not a glimpse 
of premeditation or effort; and yet he has slept in his boots every 
night but two for five weeks." 

The opening of the presidential campaign between Fremont 
and Buchanan, as well as the events in the Territory, kept 
Kansas in the forefront of national politics. The first Repub- 
lican National Convention resolved, on June 17, that "Kansas 
should be immediately admitted as a state of the Union 
with her present free constitution." * The majority of the 
Howard Committee submitted its report on July i, with much 
resultant Congressional discussion of the Kansas situation, and 
Oliver, the minority of the committee, followed suit on July 1 1 
with his report containing the evidence in regard to the Pot- 
tawatomie massacre. Even then, curiously enough, the Potta- 
watomie affair did not in any degree injure the Free State 
cause in the North. ^ Oliver himself used it in a speech on 
July 31,® and Toombs, of Georgia, also made a passing refer- 
ence to it; ^ but no one else in Congress. The Democrats con- 
tinued to base most of their criticisms upon the general policy 
of the Free State settlers in taking Sharp's rifles with them 
to Kansas. The Elections Committee of the House reported 
against the admission of Whitfield as a delegate and in favor 
of Reeder; the House on August i voted against Whitfield 
by no to 92, and against Reeder by 113 to 88, and thus 
neither was given a seat.^ There were various attempts to 
legislate during the summer. On June 25, Congressman Grow, 
of Pennsylvania, presented a bill in the House for the admis- 
sion of Kansas under the Tokepa Constitution, and the House 
passed it by 99 to 97 on the day before Colonel Sumner dis- 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 227 

persed the Topeka Legislature.^ On July 2 the Senate had 
passed by 33 to 12 votes the Toombs bill, which had been 
reported by Senator Douglas from the Committee on Terri- 
tories, in a form which betrayed clearly the alarm of the slave- 
power over the injury done its cause by the excesses of its 
agents in Kansas. The Toombs bill provided for a census of 
all white males over twenty-one years of age, bona fide resi- 
dents of the Territory. Those who were thus counted were to 
be allowed to vote on November i for delegates to a Constitu- 
tional convention, and due precautions were taken in the bill 
to guard against fraud, intimidation and election irregularities. 

But neither house of Congress would agree to the other's 
bills, and the final adjournment came without any definite 
legislation for the relief of Kansas. The House endeavored to 
embarrass the President by attaching to two appropriation 
bills riders in the interest of the Free State settlers. One of 
these was soon dropped, but the other, attached to the x^rmy 
Appropriation bill by John Sherman, practically forbade the 
President to use the troops for the purpose of sustaining the 
bogus Kansas Legislature. As a result, the Army Appro- 
priation bill failed. When Congress adjourned on August 
18, a special session was called by the President. It met on 
August 21, and on August 30 the Army Appropriation bill was 
passed without the Kansas amendment by a majority of 
three votes.'" 

More important for Kansas, during this period, was the 
organization at Buffalo of the National Kansas Committee, 
with Thaddeus Hyatt, of New York city, as president, in the 
second week in July. In the six months of its existence this 
National Kansas Committee forwarded two thousand emi- 
grants by way of the land route of Iowa and Nebraska, and 
received more than eighty-five thousand dollars in cash, 
besides gifts of clothing aggregating more than one hundred 
and ten thousand dollars.'^ By January 25, 1857, the condi- 
tions in Kansas had so improved, from the Free State point 
of view, as to make further activity on the part of the Na- 
tional Committee unnecessary. This record of its Chicago 
headquarters is, of course, wholly distinct from the even more 
remarkable record of the New England Emigration Society 
and the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. 



228 JOHN BROWN 

John Brown made but a short stay at Nebraska City. He 
took leave of his invaUds, obtained horses for himself and his 
son, and joined a party of thirty men headed by Captain Sam- 
uel Walker, and General Lane, upon whose shoulders from 
now on rested the practical direction of the Free State cause 
in Kansas, until the release, in September, of the leaders in 
prison at Leavenworth. As Captain Walker had received 
a message urging him to return to Lawrence at once, Lane 
decided that they should push on to that town, one hundred 
and fifty miles distant, as fast as humanly possible. He rode 
into Lawrence alone, thirty hours later, arriving at three A. m. 
of the morning of August ii, all of his companions having 
dropped by the wayside, i- Captain Walker rode nearly to 
Lawrence, but John Brown stopped off at Topeka with about 
one hundred and twenty miles to his credit. 

As to his intercourse with John Brown during their two or 
three days' journey to Nebraska City and their rapid return, 
Captain Walker, one of the stoutest of the Free State fighters, 
has left an interesting record in the shape of a curiously illit- 
erate letter of February 8, 1875, addressed to Judge Han- 
way, of Lane.i^ In this epistle Walker declares his belief that 
John Brown was insane during the summer of 1856. Brown 
would always go off and camp by himself. One morning, 
when Walker went to wake him, he was asleep, leaning against 
a tree, with his rifle across his knees. " I put my hand on his 
shoulder; that moment he was on his feet, his rifle at my 
breast. I pushed the muzzle up and the ball grazed my shoul- 
der. Thereafter, I never approached Brown w^hen he was 
sleeping, as it seemed to be his most wakeful time." As they 
were riding together on the day of this incident, Walker re- 
ferred to the Pottawatomie murders and frankly told Brown, 
that he would not have them on his conscience for the world. 
Brown admitted that he was in charge of the murder party 
and ordered the executions, but averred that he had not 
raised his hand against any one man. It was on this occa- 
sion, Captain Walker states, that Brown charged that the 
responsibility of the crime rested upon Robinson and Lane 
as instigators, as already related.* Walker also says that to 
oblige Brown he took a message to John Brown, Jr., in which 

* See page 184. 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 229 

the father promised to effect his son's rescue on a certain 
night; and that John Brown, Jr., replied that he wished the 
senior to stay away, as he was the cause of the son's arrest. 
The latter did not. Walker averred, then approve of his 
father's acts, and wished to have nothing to do with him at 
that time, — a statement absolutely contradicted by the son's 
letters from prison.* 

The arrival of Lane and Brown at Lawrence, to which place 
the latter soon returned from Topeka, despite his son's ear- 
nest protest that he should not expose himself on any account 
to the danger of arrest, was followed by aggressive warfare 
on the part of Free State men. On August 5 the Lawrence 
military companies, together with a few volunteers from 
Osawatomie, among them August Bondi, had driven out the 
pro-slavery settlement at New Georgia, on the Marais des 
Cygnes, not far from Osawatomie. ^^ Word of their coming 
had preceded them, and the Southern colony of from sixty to 
seventy-five persons fled as the Free State men, at whose head 
rumor placed the dread John Brown, approached. The vic- 
tors burned the block-house and such of the abandoned pro- 
visions as they could not carry away. To them the settlement 
was a nuisance; its inhabitants were charged with stealing 
horses, killing cows, injuring fences and being drunk in the 
streets of Osawatomie. ^^ To the Southerners this was a wicked 
attack, announcing the beginning of civil war upon unarmed 
men and women, whose property was wantonly destroyed 
or stolen, even to the clothes of the children. To the arrival 
of Lane's army the outrage was attributed in a bellicose 
proclamation issued at Westport on August 16 by Atchison 
and B. F, Stringfellow.^^ It is an interesting fact that, if 
drunkenness was a sin in Missourians, it did not prevent the 
Captain, Austin, of the Osawatomie company from com- 
pletely intoxicating himself on the road to this bloodless 
battle. 1^ 

"Old Capt. Brown can now be raised from every prairie 
and thicket," wrote Jason Brown to his sister Ruth on Au- 
gust 13, 1856,^^ after hearing the pro-slavery story that his 

* "You and those with you have done nobly and bravely," wrote the son 
to his father on August 13, 1856. — Original letter in possession of Mrs. John 
Brown, Jr. ^~ ~" " ' ' 



230 JOHN BROWN 

father was in command at New Georgia. Atchison and String- 
fellow placed John Brown at the head of the Free Soil men 
in every skirmish and raid of this month. ^^ The New York 
Times s correspondent called him the "terror of all Mis- 
souri" and the "old terrifier." ^o O. C. Brown, of Osawatomie, 
says, "Old John Brown's name was equal to an army with 
banners." ^i At Paola, seven miles from Osawatomie, a pro- 
slavery meeting broke up in the greatest haste on hearing 
that John Brown was coming to "take out" some men; and 
the creek over which the invader would have to come was 
heavily guarded all night by the frightened citizens of Paola." 
Mary Grant records that once, when a large party of Mis- 
sourians was returning to its State, the rear ranks called out, 
by way of joke, "John Brown is coming! " whereupon the van 
cut the mules from their traces and rode for their lives." It 
is the opinion of R. G. Elliott, of Lawrence, that: 

"Brown was a presence in Kansas and an active presence all 
through '56. Yet it was his presence more than his activities, that 
made him a power, — the idea of his being. He was a ghostly in- 
fluence. No man in Kansas was more respected. Yet after Potta- 
watomie he moved much in secret." ^^ 

"War! War! ! War! ! ! The Bloody Issue Begun! Up 
Sovereigns! and to your duty! Patience has ceased to be a 
virtue" — these were the headlines of the Leavenworth 
Journats extra on August 14, in which it described the next 
aggressive movement of the Free State forces, the second 
attack upon Franklin." Despite the lesson taught to the 
Southerners by the successful raid of June 5, they persisted 
in living in their Franklin homes. The original motive for 
this new raid was the desire of Captain Thomas Bickerton's 
artillery company for a six-pounder known to be at Franklin, 
which had been originally captured at Lawrence, for which 
town it had been purchased by Horace Greeley, Charles 
King, David Dudley Field and other prominent New York- 
ers. ='' Part of Captain Bickerton's report of the operations of 
August 12 is as follows:" 

"The Franklin affair was kept secret from the people. They 
thought when they saw us going that we were going out by the 
church to drill by moonlight. When we got up near to Franklin who 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 231 

should come along but this 'Jo Cook,' on horseback, and make 
himself known to the boys. They were very much elated with see- 
ing Lane. . . . After the taking of the place, our men, I am ashamed 
to say, were so crazy over the way, in gutting Crane's store, that I 
could hardly get any of them to help me in taking the cannon out 
of the blockhouse. . . . The postoffice was not disturbed. ... I 
went in only to see if any arms or powder were there. Found no 
cartridges and only five balls. Got the cannon on the carriage and 
brought it to Lawrence. ... I then went to work and made a 
pattern for a ball; as there was no lead in the place, and we had no 
way of making them of iron, we had to take [G. W.] Brown's type 
of the Herald of Freedom. '' 

-' The firing lasted, as usual, for several hours, and the town 
was not surrendered until a wagon of burning hay was backed 
up to the block-house. The Free State loss was one killed 
and six wounded, while three pro-slavery men were severely 
and one mortally wounded. The sack of Osawatomie was 
avenged now by the securing of a rare amount of plunder, 
composed of provisions, guns and ammunition. ^^ Major 
Buford, of the Georgia colonizers, complained in a letter to 
the Mobile Tribune that: 

" Our money, books, papers, clothing, surveying instruments, and 
many precious memorials of kindred and friends far away, were all 
consumed by the incendiary villains who hold the sway. . . . We 
are now destitute of everything except our muskets and an unyield- 
ing determination to be avenged. . . . Southerners come and help 
us. Bring each of you a double barrel gun, a brace of Colt's repeat- 
ers, and a trusty knife." ^^ 

The news of the atrocious murder of Major Hoyt on the 
same day undoubtedly inflamed the Franklin raiders. It made 
the Free State men everywhere determined to drive out the pro- 
slavery camps. They assailed, on August 15, "Fort" Saun- 
ders, a strong log-house on Washington Creek, about twelve 
miles southwest of Lawrence. After the customary fusillade, 
the pro-slavery men retreated without bloodshed on either 
side.30 Next on the list was "Fort" Titus, the stronghold of 
Colonel H. T. Titus, an active pro-slavery leader. It was in 
order to assault Titus's fort that Captain Bickerton's men de- 
sired to recapture the Franklin cannon. There was real fight- 
ing at Fort Titus, which Captain Samuel Walker, Captain 
Joel Grover and a Captain Shombre attacked at sunrise of 



232 JOHN BROWN 

August 1 6 with fifty determined men.* Captain Shombre was 
killed and nine out of ten men with him wounded in a rush on 
the block-house. ^1 In a short time eighteen out of the remain- 
ing forty attackers were wounded, including Captain Walker. 
After several hours of fighting, Free State reinforcements 
appeared, including Captain Bickerton with the six-pounder 
and its slugs made of molten type. It was run to within three 
hundred yards of the fort and fired nine or ten times. At its 
first shot its cannoneer cried, "This is the second edition 
of the Herald of Freedom I" As Titus still showed no white 
flag, a load of hay was again resorted to, and with the same 
success as at Franklin. As the wagon was backed up to the 
log- fort, and before the match was applied, the party sur- 
rendered. Colonel Titus was discovered badly wounded by 
a shot fired by Luke F. Parsons, later a devoted follower of 
John Brown. 32 Walker captured thirteen horses, four hundred 
guns, a large number of knives and pistols, a "fair stock of 
provisions " and thirty-four prisoners, six of whom were badly 
wounded. One dead man was found in the block-house before 
it was burned to the ground. A Free State man stole a satchel 
containing fifteen thousand dollars belonging to Titus, but, 
says Walker, "it did him little good. He died a miserable 
death in the far West." Everything not burned was appro- 
priated by the Free State men. Colonel Titus himself nar- 
rowly escaped with his life. But for Captain Walker he would 
have been summarily killed on being taken, and but for 
that same brave, vigorous character he would have been 
executed at Lawrence, to which place the prisoners were at 
once removed. 

The testimony as to whether John Brown was at Saunders 
and Titus is conflicting. He himself left no statement bearing 
upon it, and Luke Parsons, James Blood, O. E. Leonard and 
others are positive that he was not at either place. The weight 
of evidence would seem to be on that side. John Brown, after 
the Wakarusa " war," left Lawrence, saying, " I offered to help 
you and you would not listen. I will still work with you, but 
under no commander but old John Brown." ^^ Thereafter his 

* "Within sight and hearing of the United States camp, where were guarded 
the treason prisoners." The fight was witnessed by Major Sedgwick's troopers, 
who failed, however, to interfere. — C. Robinson, The Kansas Conflict, p. 307. 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 233 

disposition was to fight only when he was in sole command. 
Moreover, his remaining at Lawrence during those crowded 
days after his and Lane's arrival there might easily be ex- 
plained by his desire to be near his imprisoned son, whose 
rescue, if possible and advisable, was perhaps the strongest 
motive for his return to Kansas from Nebraska City.^^ But 
that John Brown was at Lawrence when Walker arrived 
with his prisoners admits of no doubt. Again his voice was 
raised for the extreme penalty; again he asked a sacrifice of 
blood. As Captain Walker portrays it: 

"At a little way out of Lawrence I met a delegation sent by the 
committee of safety with an order for the immediate delivery of 
Titus into their hands. Knowing the character of the men I re- 
fused to give him up. Our arrival at Lawrence created intense ex- 
citement. The citizens swarmed around us, clamoring for the blood 
of our prisoner. The committee of safety held a meeting and de- 
cided that Titus should be hanged, John Brown and other distin- 
guished men urging the measure strongly. At four o'clock in the 
evening I went before the committee, and said that Titus had sur- 
rendered to me; that I had promised him his life, and that I would 
defend it with my own. I then left the room. Babcock followed 
me out and asked me if I was fully determined. Being assured that 
I was, he went back, and the committee by a new vote decided 
to postpone the hanging indefinitely. I was sure of the support 
of some 300 good men, and among them Captain Tucker, Captain 
Harvey, and Captain Stulz. Getting this determined band into line, 
I approached the house where Titus was confined and entered. Just 
as I opened the door I heard pistol shots in Titus's room, and rush- 
ing in I found a desperado named ' Buckskin ' firing over the guard's 
shoulders at the wounded man as he lay on his cot. It took but one 
blow from my heavy dragoon pistol to send the villain heels-over- 
head to the bottom of the stairs. Captain Brown and Doctor Avery 
were outside haranguing the mob to hang Titus despite my objec- 
tions. They said I had resisted the committee of safety, and was 
myself, therefore, a public enemy. The crowd was terribly excited, 
but the sight of my 300 solid bayonets held them in check." 

Colonel Titus was finally saved by Governor Shannon. In 
his official Executive Minutes of August 18, Governor Shan- 
non has thus recorded the final act of his governorship: ^^ 

"Governor Shannon this day resigned the office of Governor of 
the Territory of Kansas, and forwarded his resignation by mail to 
the President of the United States, having previously visited the 
town of Lawrence, at the imminent hazard of his life, and effected 



234 JOHN BROWN 

the release of Col. H. T. Titus and others, who had been forcibly 
taken there by the armed organization of outlaws whose headquar- 
ters are at that place, and who had on the day before battered 
down with artillery the house of said Col. Titus, robbed his premises 
of everything valuable, and then burned his house to the ground, 
killing one of his companions, and taking the remainder, with Col. 
Titus and their plunder, to their fortified headquarters -— Lawrence 
— at which place said Titus was put on trial for his life, and sen- 
tenced to die; which sentence would doubtless have been executed, 
but for the timely interposition of Governor Shannon, who, in 
consideration of the release of said Titus and his companions, con- 
sented to release yiye men held in custody in Lecompton under legal 
process, charged with being engaged in the late midnight attack 
and sacking of the town of Franklin — the outlaws having per- 
emptorily refused to release said Titus and others, upon his demand 
as the executive ofiEicer of the Territory." 

In the course of his farewell speech to the citizens of Law- 
rence, Governor Shannon promised to deliver over to Major 
Sedgwick the cannon taken from Lawrence on the 2 1st of 
May, and added: ''Fellow-citizens of Lawrence, before leaving 
you I desire to express my earnest desire for your health, hap- 
piness and prosperity. Farewell." ^^ Governor Shannon In 
later years returned to Lawrence and settled there, winning 
the regard and respect of his neighbors and former opponents. 
Even his old enemy, Dr. Charles Robinson, whose opinions 
about his former associates were subject to radical changes 
with the lapse of years, paid him a high tribute after his death. 
But his record as Governor was not one in which he could 
righteously take prlde.^^ His resignation was not accepted 
by President Pierce and he was removed from his of^ce,^^ his 
successor being John W. Geary, who arrived in the Territory 
on September 9, and remained only six months in this posi- 
tion, resigning on March 20, 1857. 

Besides the larger raids already recounted, August was a 
month of minor warfare. Thus on August 13 the home of the 
Rev. Martin White was raided by Free State men, among 
them James H. Holmes, and ten pro-slavery horses were 
weaned from their allegiance to a wicked and failing cause. 
White, a prejudiced witness, asserted that the horses were 
laden with plunder, but on this point the memories of Flolmes 
and Bondl, both participants, failed them.^^ A reprisal was 
reported by the Tribune on August 28, In these words: 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 235 

"On the 22nd the Quaker Mission, on the road from Westport 
to Lawrence, was attacked by an armed band of Georgians who 
plundered the place, taking all the horses they could find, and com- 
mitting all manner of wanton outrages upon persons and property. 
. . . The inoffensive people were compelled to flee for their lives, 
their property all stolen or destroyed." : 

The loss of horses seemed especially grievous to the Trib- 
une's Lawrence correspondent, who doubtless had not heard 
of the exploit at Martin White's. 

John Brown's brief period of inactivity in Lawrence came 
to an end immediately after the exchange of prisoners with 
Shannon.* According to Bondi, he arrived in Osawatomie, for 
the first time after the Pottawatomie murders, about August 
20, "with a spick and span four-mule team, the wagon loaded 
with provisions; besides, he was well supplied with money and 
all contributed by the Northern friends of the Free State 
Kansas, men like Thaddeus Hyatt." Brown's avowed object 
was to give the pro-slavery settlements of Linn and Bour- 
bon counties "a taste of the treatment which their Missouri 
friends would not cease to extend to the Free State settle- 
ments of the Marais des Cygnes and Pottawatomie," — a 
statement by Bondl which again refutes the allegation that 
the Pottawatomie murders freed that vicinity from Interfer- 
ence by the Border Ruffians. 

Naturally, as a good general, John Brown's first concern 
was for the mounts of his men. Bondl avers that some of 
Brown's men received prompt orders to capture all of "Dutch 
Henry" Sherman's horses. He himself obtained, when these 
orders were executed, "a four year old fine bay horse for my 
mount," and "old John Brown rode a fine blooded bay," 
while "Dutch Henry" fell back. It Is to be presumed, upon 
Shanks' mare, and, between meditations upon his just pun- 
ishment for sympathizing with Missouri, doubtless gave 
thanks that he was still alive. He was shot dowm In the road — 

* The following appeal from Lane was sent to John Brown from Topeka on 
August 12: "Mr. Brown — Gen. Joe Cook wants you to come to Lawrence this 
night, for we expect to have a fight on Washington Creek. Come to Topeka as 
soon as possible, and I will pilot you to the place. Yours in Haste, H. Stratton." 
This Mr. Stratton is one of those who are certain that John Brown commanded 
the "right wing of cavalry" in the attack on Fort Saunders on August 15. The 
original of Stratton's message is in the Kansas Historical Society. 



236 JOHN BROWN 

as had been many an innocent Free Soiler — by Archie Crans- 
dell, a Free State man, in the presence of James H. Holmes, on 
March 2, 1857.^° With Brown came between thirty and forty 
men, whom he forthwith began to organize into what he 
called a " regular volunteer force," for the purpose of serving 
throughout the war under his command. The "Covenant" * 
drawn up by him under which the men enlisted, together with 
the first enlistments and the by-laws which were intended to 
be the articles of war, still exists, and shows that his company 
organized as if the authority of a State were behind its com- 
mander.*^ 

Associated with Brown's company was one comprising in 
part some recently arrived lowans, "every one mounted on 
captured pro-slavery horses." John Brown now gave con- 
siderable thought to the best way of defending Osawatomie. 
According to C. G. Allen, one of the men encamped there, 
Brown desired to meet the enemy at the Marais des Cygnes 
crossing, to the east of the town, and then to fall back on 
the twin block-houses. He was certain that the Missourians, 
rumors of whose approach were already in the air, would come 
in considerable force if at all, a prognostication eminently 
correct.* 2 

On August 24 the Brown and Cline companies set out for 
the South, marching eight miles and camping on Sugar Creek, 
Linn County. That evening John Brown made a speech to 
his company, in which, according to Bondi, he made these 
prescriptions for the conduct of his men when on the war- 
path: 

"He wished all of us to understand that we must not molest 
women or children, nor to take or capture anything useless to use 
for Free State people; further, never destroy any kind of property 
wantonly, nor burn any buildings, as Free State people could use 
them after the Pro-slavery people were driven out ; never consider 
that any captured horses or cattle were anything else but the com- 
mon property of the Free State army, the horses for military use 
and the cattle for food for the Free State soldiers and Free State 
settlers. He ordered, also, that we, his company, should always 
keep some distance in camp from the Cline Company, as they were 
too riotous." 

* See Appendix. 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 237 

While in camp here, news reached the captains that a large 
pro-slavery force was in the immediate neighborhood. The 
Cline company took the lead the next morning, going in one 
direction, Brown's in another. The luck of running down the 
enemy came to Captain Cline. He captured some spies and 
finally reached and charged the camp, taking twelve prisoners 
and the camp equipage, one of the Missourians being terribly 
wounded in one leg. In the course of this fight at South Middle 
Creek, the Free State men released George W. Partridge, of 
Osawatomie, who had been taken prisoner by the Missouri 
men the day before. But this rescue was of doubtful value, 
since he met a violent end but five days later. The Border 
Ruffians fled in all directions for dear life, shouting that John 
Brown was pursuing. ^^ As part of the Border Ruffians had 
gone toward Pottawatomie, John Brown and his men went in 
that direction for a while and then circled back. The next 
morning, August 26, at daybreak, the two Free State bodies 
met. Brown charging at the head of his determined com- 
pany in accordance with his characteristic tactics of seeking 
close quarters. Fortunately, before an actual collision took 
place, the friends recognized each other. An eye-witness in 
Cline's company, Dr. J. W. Winkley, has thus described this 
incident: 

"They came swiftly up over the brow of the hill, in full view, 
with Brown at their head, and, without halting or even slacken- 
ing their speed, swung into line of battle. Only thirty men! Yet 
they presented a truly formidable array. The line was formed two 
deep, and was stretched out to give the men full room for action. 
Brown sprang his horse in front of the ranks, waving his long broad- 
sword, and on they came, sweeping down upon us with irresistible 
fury. . . ." ** 

After exchanging mutual congratulations, both bodies 
parted again, not, however, until the prisoners had been duly 
exhorted by John Brown and made to promise that they 
would not take up arms again, and then set adrift. Dr. 
Winkley thus recalls some of Brown's earnest and stirring 
words: ^^ 

"You are fighting for slavery. You want to make or keep other 
people slaves. Do you not know that your wicked efforts will end 
in making slaves of yourselves? You come here to make this a slave 



238 JOHN BROWN 

State. You are fighting against liberty, which our Revolutionary 
fathers fought to establish in this Republic, where all men should 
be free and equal, with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness. Therefore, you are traitors to liberty and 
to your country, of the worst kind, and deserve to be hung to the 
nearest tree. . . . You we forgive. For, as you yourselves have 
confessed, we believe it can be said of you that, as was said of 
them of old, you being without knowledge, 'you know not what 
you do.' But hereafter you will be without excuse. 

"Go in peace. Go home and tell your neighbors and friends of 
your mistake. We deprive you only of your arms, and do that only 
lest some of you are not yet converted to the right. We let you go 
free of punishment this time; but, do we catch you over the border 
again committing depredations, you must not expect, nor will you 
receive, any mercy." 

John Brown then rode off to raid the pro-slavery settle- 
ments on Sugar Creek. By a coincidence, the leader of the 
Border Ruffian force was named Captain John E. Brown. 
To his house the anti-slavery Brown paid an early visit, taking 
as his toll fifty pro-slavery cattle and all the men's clothes 
the house contained. Captain Brown assured the badly 
frightened mistress of the house that there was no reason for 
alarm, — that he never hurt women and children as did her 
husband, for whom he left his compliments and the message 
that he had an old score to settle with him.^^ Other houses 
were similarly searched, and their cattle taken, on the ground 
that they had originally been Free State before being pur- 
loined by the pro-slavery settlers. 

On Thursday evening, August 28, Brown reached Osawa- 
tomie, travelling slowly because of the one hundred and fifty 
head of cattle he drove before him. Both his company and 
Cline's bivouacked in the town that night. The next morning 
early they divided their plunder and cattle, and Brown moved 
his camp to the high ground north of Osawatomie, where now 
stands the State Insane Asylum. ^^ It was then known as 
Crane's ranch. An ordinary commander would have allowed 
all his men to rest. But not John Brown. He w^as in the 
saddle all day, riding with James H. Holmes and others of his 
men miles along Pottawatomie Creek, whence he crossed to 
Sugar Creek, returning to Osawatomie with more captured 
cattle by w^ay of the Fort Scott trail. The locality they rode 
through bore many evidences of the irregular warfare going on ; 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 239 

they passed near the homes of the murdered pro-slavery men 
and the deserted cabins of Free State settlers. One of Brown's 
companions, George W. Partridge, passed his own claim, and 
there saw his aged parents for the last time, all unconscious 
of the impending and, for him, fatal conflict of the next day. 
To Holmes, John Brown appeared on that afternoon more 
than ever the natural leader. He rode a tall and strong chest- 
nut horse ; his spare form was more impressive when he was 
mounted than when he was afoot. Alert and clear-sighted, he 
ceaselessly watched the landscape for evidences of the enemy. ^^ 

It was as he was returning thus, in a cloud of dust, and 
driving the motley herd before him, that he met a party of 
men galloping toward him. The newcomers turned out to be 
his son Frederick, Alexander G. Flawes, John Still, George 
Cutter and a Mr. Adamson, who had been sent down from 
Lawrence by General Lane with the earnest request that John 
Brown and the other leading Free State men go at once to 
Lawrence, to take part in the reorganization of the Free State 
forces, and also to oppose Atchison, who was then reported 
about to invade Kansas once more and with a large body of 
men. ^9 After consultation it was decided that the call should be 
heeded on the next day. As both parties reached Osawatomie, 
about sundown, John Brown and his son Frederick parted for 
the last time. The son went on toward Lawrence, but, accord- 
ing to George Cutter, he felt indisposed and decided to spend 
the night at the house of a settler named Carr, on the Law- 
rence road, only a couple of hundred yards from the cabin of 
his uncle, the Rev. Mr. Adair. With Frederick Brown stayed 
Mr. Hawes. Either at Carr's or in the neighboring Cronkhite 
house were Still, Cutter and Adamson as lodgers for the night. 

John Brown and his party, with the exception of Holmes, 
who spent the night in town, crossed the Marais des Cygnes 
to their camp on the Crane claim, taking their cattle with 
them. Captain Cline and about fifteen men remained in the 
town, at the juncture of the Marais des Cygnes and the Potta- 
watomie; here stood the hamlet and its block-house, the latter 
facing toward the east, from which direction it was feared 
the Missourians might come. The cry of wolf had, however, 
been heard in Osawatomie so often, that on the 29th of August 
no especial apprehension was felt. 



240 JOHN BROWN 

Captain Shore and a small company of Chicago men 
left about three o'clock in the afternoon, bound northward 
toward Lawrence, and no sentinels were put on guard save 
by John Brown, in accordance with the articles of enlistment 
of his company. Two of his men, Bondi and Benjamin, were 
on guard from two A. M. on the morning of the 30th until the 
firing began, ^"^ but they were at a considerable distance from 
Osawatomie, facing toward Paola to the northeast, from 
which direction John Brown himself expected that the ad- 
vance, if any, would be made. Early in the night the long- 
expected warning came, after nearly every one had gone to 
bed. John Yelton, a mail-carrier, arrived fresh from a ten 
days' captivity in the town of New Santa Fe, Missouri, 
and warned the Greer family that the citizens must prepare 
either to fight at once or flee. Both Holmes and Dr. Upde- 
graff were sleeping in the house, but were too tired fully to 
comprehend the warning. Action was therefore deferred until 
daylight. 

Yelton's information was wholly correct. The plan to raid 
Osawatomie and finally destroy it had carefully matured in 
the minds of the pro-slavery leaders, but Osawatomie was 
only one objective of the formidable expedition which left 
Westport on August 23, and marched on the same day to 
New Santa Fe. There four hundred and eighty pro-slavery 
men were found in camp. By the 25th, the number of the 
Ruffians then being eleven hundred and fifty, they were reg- 
ularly organized as two regiments, with Atchison as major- 
general, John W. Reid, a Mexican War veteran, as brigadier- 
general, and Colonel P. H. Rosser, of Virginia, as colonel 
of the second regiment, while the first was entrusted to a 
Colonel Brown. Camp was broken on the 26th. On the 
29th, at Bull Creek, forty miles from Osawatomie, General 
Reid, with two hundred and fifty mounted men and one six- 
pounder, was detached to proceed to the Abolition settlement. 
According to a pro-slavery officer, W. Limerick, who wrote 
to General Shields, of Lexington, Missouri, on the 29th from 
Bull Creek, the plan was to attack Osawatomie at once: 

"It will all be destroyed; we then go to Hickory Point, all the 
houses in the settlement will be burned ; Topeka will share the same 
fate. We will wait at this place for some 200 or 300 men expected 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 241 

to arrive to-morrow. We are confident of success and expect to clear 
the whole territory of AboHtionists before our return. ... I am 
just informed that Lawrence will be attacked on Sunday next." 

General Reid made an all-night march, on leaving Bull 
Creek, and, taking a leaf out of John Brown's tactics, reached 
Osawatomie in the early morning. He was too experienced 
a soldier to enter from the direction from which he would be 
expected, but passed the town to the south and, after getting 
well beyond it, went northward until he struck the Lawrence 
road. He then turned his army again, and just as the light 
began to glimmer in the east, on the morning of the 30th, 
reached the high ground above the town, near the Adair, Carr 
and Cronkhite houses. He thus not only entered from the 
west, but had the opportunity to charge downhill into the 
settlement, if he wished to utilize it. 

On his way, Reid's men were joined by the Rev. Martin 
White, as malignant as ever in his hatred of all Free Soil men, 
and particularly eager to enter Osawatomie in order to recap- 
ture some of his stolen horses. Because of his knowledge of 
the country, White joined the " point" of the advance guard, 
composed of two or three men. As they came over the crest 
of the hill, with the Adair cabin to the left of the road and the 
Carr house to their right, a tall and vigorous man approached 
them, all unsuspicious of their purpose. It was Frederick 
Brown, who had risen early to feecl the horses, which had been 
left overnight on the Adair place, preparatory to a prompt 
start for Lawrence. It is the tradition in Osawatomie that 
Frederick Brown greeted White in a friendly way. White 
himself thus told the story to the Kansas (pro-slavery) House 
of Representatives on February 13 of the next year: 

"Whilst I was acting as one of the advance guard coming in con- 
tact with their picket guard, Frederick Brown, one of their guard, 
advanced toward us. VVe halted and I recognized him and ordered 
him to 'halt,' but he replied, 'I know you!' and continued to ad- 
vance towards me. I ordered him a second time to 'halt.' By this 
time he was getting very close to me, and threw his hand to his 
revolver; to save my own life I shot him down."" 

White's first bullet went straight through his victim's heart 
and Brown tumbled to the ground, — probably without hav- 
ing any thought of violence before consciousness fled forever. 



242 JOHN BROWN 

If it was the spell of the Pottawatomie murders which had 
brought him back to the neighborhood of the dread crimes 
upon which he had gazed helpless, between a sense of wrong 
and fidelity to his dominating father, he had now paid in 
full for his participation as an accessory. Certain it is that 
Frederick Brown was no more prepared for his sudden end than 
were the men whose blood had been shed by John Brown's 
orders, that there might be remission of sin for the Border 
Ruffians. White pretended to recognize the boots on Brown 
as a pair stolen from his son in the raid upon White; but there 
is no evidence to show that Frederick Brown was at that time 
elsewhere than in Lawrence. On January i, i860, White 
wrote to the Bates County, Missouri, Standard: "The same 
day I shot Fred, I would have shot the last devil of the gang 
that was in the attack on my house, if I had known them and 
got the chance," — a truly Christian sentiment for a minister 
of the gospel. 

The pretence that he saw in Frederick Brown a picket of 
the enemy was obviously an afterthought of White's. There 
was no sign of any stirring as the two men met, and the next 
few developments certainly dispel the theory that the laws 
of war were being followed. The shot that killed Brown was 
heard both at the Adair and Carr houses, as well as the noise 
of horses' feet as the advance guard passed on toward the town. 
As the Rev. Mr. Adair came hurriedly out of his house, he met 
David Garrison, a relative and a settler in that vicinity, who 
had slept in a shed in the rear of the Adair cabin. They hurried 
to the road, and, looking down it, Garrison asked: "What is 
that lying on the road? " Adair thought it a blanket — only to 
find it was the body of his nephew Frederick. As they stood 
over the corpse, some of the others, Cutter and Hawes among 
them, arrived from the Carr house. Adair hurried westward 
to see if any one else was coming, and quickly perceived the 
head of the main column of Reid's forces, now steadily ap- 
proaching. He hurried back, shouting to the others to save 
themselves. Adair safely reached his own cabin, gave a warn- 
ing, and then hid in the bushes unharmed until his children 
found him and notified him that he might return. No such 
good fortune attended the others. Garrison, Hawes and Cut- 
ter made the mistake of returning to Carr's, where they were 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 243 

speedily seen and pursued into the brush. Hawes miraculously 
escaped without injury, the Border Ruffians almost riding 
over him. Cutter, being overtaken after exchanging shots with 
his pursuers, received in his head and body four charges of 
buckshot. Leaving him for a moment, the Ruffians followed the 
unarmed Garrison, and overhauled and summarily despatched 
him. Returning to Cutter, one of the Ruffians dismounted, 
kicked him, turned him over and said : '* He breathes; if I only 
had another charge in my gun, I would put it in his head. I 
guess that would fix him." Fortunately for Cutter, the Mis- 
sourian could not make his revolver work, and so rode off 
saying: "Let him rip, he will die fast enough!" — Such was 
humanity in Kansas on the 30th of August, 1856! Despite 
thirty distinct wounds. Cutter survived his terrible experi- 
ence, Hawes bringing him aid and food as soon as the Ruf- 
fians disappeared. 

Had Reid's men now galloped directly into the village, 
which was but a mile and a half away, they would have been 
in complete control before any one could have slipped away. 
Instead, his men delayed on the ridge, perhaps for breakfast, 
and the news of their coming and of the death of Frederick 
Brown was carried into the town by Charles Adair, a mere 
boy, who galloped in. A messenger at once crossed the river 
to alarm John Brown. The first to take the aggressive were 
Dr. Updegraff and Holmes. The latter, who was saddling 
up when the news came, rode up toward the Adairs' until he 
sighted the Border Ruffians, upon whom he fired three times 
from his Sharp's rifle. This incident again checked the advance 
and gave the Free State men time to rally to the defence. 
Brown himself was preparing breakfast as the news of his 
son's death reached him. He seized his arms, cried, "Men, 
come on!" and with Luke F. Parsons hurried downhill to the 
crossing nearest the town. The others delayed to finish their 
coffee, but most of them overtook their leader as he reached 
the town. On their way John Brown asked: "Parsons, were 
you ever under fire?" " I replied, 'No,' " relates Parsons, "* no, 
but I will obey orders. Tell me what you want me to do.' " 
To which Brown answered with the well-known sentence, 
"Take more care to end life well than to live long." With this 
sentiment on his lips, the grim chieftain of the "volunteer 



244 JOHN BROWN 

regulars" entered the engagement which gave him more 
renown than anything save the climax of his career; from 
this time forward it was as "Old Osawatomie Brown" that 
he was most generally known. 

As they reached the block-house, Brown said: "Parsons, 
take ten men and go into that block-house and hold your posi- 
tions as long as you can. I '11 take the rest of the men, go into 
the timber and annoy them from the flank." This Parsons 
did, finding in the block-house Spencer Kellogg Brown, son 
of O. C. Brown, the founder of the town, a lad fourteen years 
old, of rare pluck and daring disposition, who, being allowed 
to go and get a rifle, returned with it in a few minutes. From 
the second story, Parsons's men saw the Border Ruffians com- 
ing in two long lines with their brass cannon. One of them 
cried, "We cannot stay here, they will drive us out." When 
Parsons and Austin took their places in the second story to 
study the situation, their men all decamped to join Brown. 
Following them. Parsons met Captain Cline and his company 
of fifteen well-mounted men retiring through the town, aban- 
doning their cattle and other plunder. Only four days pre- 
viously, this little band, then considerably larger, had gallantly 
charged the Border Ruffians on South Middle Creek. On this 
particular morning, Captain Cline could not be induced to stay 
very long on the line of battle; one of his men, Theodore 
Parker Powers, was killed in the few minutes they were at 
the front. Captain Cline explained to the Tribune ^^ that his 
men did not retire until they ran out of ammunition. In any 
event, their disappearance weakened the Free State force not 
a little. Parsons and Austin found that Brown had skilfully 
hidden his men behind the trees and brush in the fringe of 
timber along the Marais des Cygnes, which ran nearly par- 
allel to the road down which the Missourians were coming. 
There is to-day still a fringe of timber along the river, and still 
the open space across which the opposing forces fired at each 
other. 

The Border Ruffians were mounted and in the open. When 
the shots from the Free State men struck among them, the 
agitation caused by wounded men or horses threw the com- 
panies into confusion, which they at first tried to correct by 
re-forming under fire. As the firing grew hotter, more men 




THE (i.-AWATOMIE BATl 1.1,1 11.1. L> 
Looking toward the river 




PART OF THE BLACK JACK BATTLEFIELD 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 245 

joined John Brown, among them Alexander Hawes, unde- 
terred by his narrow escape when Garrison and Cutter were 
shot. As each man came under his eye, Brown placed him 
behind a tree or a rock, but the leader himself walked up and 
down, encouraging the others and bidding them make their 
fire effective. His son Jason was near him most of the time. 
Once Brown stopped and asked Parsons if he could see any- 
thing torn or bloody upon his back. " No, Captain, I cannot," 
replied Parsons. "Well, something hit me a terrible rap on the 
back," said Brown; "I don't intend to be shot in the back if 
I can help it." 

It is not probable that, all told, John Brown had more than 
thirty-eight or forty men in line, aside from Cline's force. He 
himself said about thirty. They held their ground well, even 
after Reid brought his cannon into play. His grape-shot went 
too high into the trees, bringing down branches and adding to 
the discomfort of the Free Soil men, but not actually injuring 
anybody. Next, the Border Ruffians dismounted, and, urged 
by General Reid, who waved his sword and shouted loudly, 
advanced toward the woods. At once Brown's men began to 
retreat, following the stream and keeping in the protection of 
the timber until they had gone some distance down toward 
the saw-mill. When they were on the bank, all suddenly 
turned as if an order had been given and jumped into the 
river. It was the Border Ruffians' opportunity. In a skirmish 
or in real warfare, to have an unfordable river at one's back 
is the worst of tactics. For this John Brown must not be cen- 
sured, since it was the only place where he could have made 
a stand, unless he had chosen to fight in the settlement itself 
and risked the lives of the women and children there. 

But if Brown was not to blame for this strategy, the con- 
sequences of it were serious, in that George Partridge was 
killed in the river. Holmes saved his life miraculously by div- 
ing when under heavy fire. Parsons and Austin narrowly 
escaped Partridge's fate, Austin by hiding between some logs 
near the saw-mill, and shooting a Border Ruffian out of his 
saddle. Dr. UpdegrafT, who had been badly wounded in the 
thigh, managed to escape. George Grant had time to notice 
that John Brown, as he waded the river, cut a "queer figure, 
in a broad straw hat and a white linen duster, his old coat- 



246 JOHN BROWN 

tails floating outspread upon the water and a revolver held 
high in each hand, over his head." Jason Brown, too, re- 
members the generaHssimo's Hnen duster; he, Hke his father, 
got safely across. The fourteen-year-old soldier, Spencer K. 
Brown, fell into the enemy's hands, as did Robert Reynolds, 
H. K. Thomas and Charles Kaiser. The latter, a veteran of 
a European revolution, fought to the last on the edge of 
the river before yielding to a relentless enemy. William B. 
Fuller, a settler, was captured before the fight began, and 
Joseph H. Morey later in the day. 

In later years. General Reid insisted that there was no battle 
at Osawatomie, — ' ' merely the driving out of a flock of quail." ^' 
But after the quail had crossed the river, there was still mis- 
chief for Reid to do. He fired a round or two at the block- 
house before all of Brown's men were out of range and hearing, 
and then, when there was no reply, his Ruffians began the 
work of reducing Osawatomie to ashes. This was done despite 
General Reid's protest. If he had held his men bravely to 
their work in the hour's fighting with Brown, he was unequal 
now to saving the twenty-five to thirty houses and stores, 
that were plundered and then burned. O. C. Brown's safe was 
robbed of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, after which 
the torch was applied to his house. Three bags full of mail, 
which the warning mail-carrier, John Yelton, had brought, 
were cut open and their contents examined and flung to the 
winds. The horses and cattle at hand were gathered up and 
carried off, including Cline's booty from South Middle Creek. 
The saw-mill of the Emigrant Aid Society was not harmed, 
because, it is said, a single man. Freeman Austin, opened such 
a brisk fire on the Border Ruffians as they approached, that 
they retired in haste. 

By ten o'clock of that evening. General Reid's command 
was back at the Bull Creek camp. On the next day he made 
the following official report of his enterprise : 

Camp Bull Creek, Aug. 31. 
Gentlemen: — I moved with 250 men on the Abolition fort and 
town of Osawattomie — the headquarters of Old Brown — on night 
before last; marched 40 miles and attacked the town without dis- 
mounting the men about sunrise on yesterday. We had a brisk 
fight for an hour or more and had five men wounded — none dan- 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 247 

gerously — Capt. Boice, William Gordon and three others. We 
killed about thirty of them, among the number, certain, a son of 
Old Brown, and almost certain Brown himself; destroyed all their 
ammunition and provisions, and the boys would burn the town to 
the ground. / could not help it. 

We must be supported by our friends. We still want more men 
and ammunition, ammunition of all sorts. Powder, muskets, balls 
and caps is the constant cry. 

I write in great haste, as I have been in saddle, rode 100 miles, 
and fought a battle without rest. 

Your friend, 

Reid.'* 

A joint letter of Congrave Jackson and G. B. M. Maughas, 
"Capt. of Company B," dated at Bull Creek, September i, 
gives another pro-slavery view of the fight: 

"The enemy commenced firing on us at half a mile, which is point 
blank range for Sharp's Rifles. They had taken cover under a thick 
growth of underwood and numbered about 150. We charged upon 
them, having to march 800 yards across an open prairie, against 
an unseen foe, through a hail-storm of rifle bullets. This was done 
with a coolness and ability unsurpassed, until we got within 50 yards 
of them when we commenced a galling fire, which together with some 
telling rounds of grape from our cannon, soon drove them from 
their hiding place with a loss of some 20 or 30 men killed. We had 
lost not a single man, and had only five or six wounded." ^^ 

The report of the death of John Brown persisted for only 
a few days. That it was believed, or hoped for, in St. Louis a 
week later, appears from the following editorial in the St. 
Louis Morning Herald of September 6, 1856, which declared 
that because of Pottawatomie, "by far the most atrocious 
and inexcusable outrage yet perpetrated in that distracted 
Territory, . . . his death and the destruction of his family 
would, for that reason, be less a matter of regret even with 
men of the humanest feeling." 

Brown made no attempt to rally his force after It was driven 
across the Marals des Cygnes. It was too scattered to make 
that possible. Indeed, Bondl, Benjamin and Hawes set off 
at once for Lawrence, and so, by himself, did Holmes. John 
Brown and Jason spent a good part of the day searching for 
a ford above the town by which they might cross to the Adair 
house. But before they set out to reach their relatives and 
find the dead body of their son and brother, Frederick, they 



248 JOHN BROWN 

stood on the bank above the river and watched the smoke 
and flames of burning Osawatomie. "God sees it," said John 
Brown, according to Jason, as he watched this spectacle, the 
tears rolHng down his face. " I have only a short time to live 
— only one death to die, and I will die fighting for this cause. 
There will be no more peace in this land until slavery is done 
for. I will give them something else to do than to extend slave 
territory. I will carry the war into Africa." 

If the Border Rufifians were at sea in their estimate of the 
loss of life they had inflicted, John Brown was still further 
from the mark in his report of General Reid's casualties. 
This appears from his letter of September 7 to his family : 

Lawrence K T 7th Sept 1856 
Dear Wife & Children Every One I have one moment to 
write to you to say that I am yet alive that Jason, «& family were well 
yesterday John; & family I hear are well; he being yet a prisoner. 
On the morning of the 30th Aug an attack was made by the ruffians 
on Osawatomie numbering some 400 by whose scouts our dear 
Fredk was shot dead without warning he supposing them to be 
Free State men as near as we can learn. One other man a Cousin 
of Mr. Adair was murdered by them about the same time that 
Fredk was killed & one badly wounded at the same time. At this 
time I was about 3 miles off where I had some 14 or 15 men over 
night that I had just enlisted to serve under me as regulars. These 
I collected as well as I could with some 12 or 15 more & in about 
f of an Hour attacked them from a wood with thick undergrowth, 
with this force we threw them into confusion for about 15 or 20 
minuets during which time we killed & wounded from 70 to 80 of 
the enemy as they say & then we escaped as well as we could with 
one killed while escaping ; Two or Three wounded ; & as many more 
missing. Four or Five Free-State men were butchered during the 
day in all. Jason fought bravely by my side during the fight & 
escaped with me he being unhurt. I was struck by a partly spent 
Grape, Canister, or Rifle shot which bruised me some, but did not 
injure me seriously. "Hitherto the Lord hath helped me" notwith- 
standing my afflictions. Things seem rather quiet just now; but 
what another Hour will bring I cannot say. I have seen Three or 
Four letters from Ruth & one from Watson, of July or Aug which 
are all I have seen since in June. I was very glad to hear once 
more from you & hope that you will continue to write to some of 
the friends so that I may hear from you. I am utterly unable to 
write you for most of the time. May the God of our fathers bless 
& save you all 

Your Affectionate Husband & Father, 

John Brown. : 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 249 

Monday morning, 8th Sept. 56 
Jason has just come in Left all well as usual. Johns trial is to 
come off or commence today. Yours ever 

John Brown.^® 

Subsequently, John Brown thus summarized the results of 
the fight for Lydia Maria Child: 

Border Ruffian force at Osawatomie Aug. 30th 400 men. 
Free State force 30 men. 

Ruffians (as by their private account 31 or 32) killed, & from 
45 to 50 wounded. 

Loss of Free State men in the fight one killed & 2 wounded Free 
Statemen murdered Four; & one left for dead with twenty shot & 
bullet holes. One proslavery man murdered by themselves. 

Your friend 

John Brown." 

The pro-slavery man reported murdered was named Wil- 
liam Williams, said to have been a "Free State Missourian," 
whom neither party claimed ; his name is not on the Osawato- 
mie monument. He was killed in the town before the Border 
Rufiftans left. As to the loss of the latter, there is no evidence 
to show in contemporary accounts or newspapers that it was 
as heavy as Brown himself thought. He prepared for the 
press, on the same day that he wrote the above letter, a more 
elaborate story of the battle, which in no wise differed from 
the letter in any of its facts. It is a concise and excellently 
written narrative, one of the best products of his pen. In it he 
thus explains his plan in taking his men into the timber: 

"As I had no means of learning correctly the force of the enemy, 
I placed twelve of the recruits in a log-house hoping we might be 
able to defend the town. I then gathered some fifteen more men 
together, whom we armed with guns, and we started in the direction 
of the enemy. After going a few rods we could see them approach- 
ing the town in line of battle, about half a mile off, upon a hill west 
of the village. I then gave up all idea of doing more than to annoy, 
from the timber near the town, into which we were all retreated, 
and which was filled with a thick growth of underbrush ; but I had 
no time to recall the twelve men in the log-house, and so lost their 
assistance in the fight. At the point above named I met with Cap- 
tain Cline, a very active young man, who had with him some twelve 
or fifteen mounted men, and persuaded him to go with us into the 
timber, on the southern shore of the Osage, or Marais des Cygnes, 
a little to the northwest from the village." ^^ 



250 JOHN BROWN 

It would seem from the above that John Brown was not 
aware that the men from the block-house joined his line. Yet 
he must have known that Parsons and Austin joined him. 
This confusion may account for his underestimate of the men 
who, from their own narratives and those of others, are known 
to have fought with him In the timber. As for the prisoners, 
Charles Kaiser met the same cruel fate as did Dow, Major 
Hoyt, Hoppe and the long list of those murdered In cold blood 
by the Border Ruffians. Two days after his capture, on Sep- 
tember I, after the army of Atchison had retreated to Cedar 
Creek, he was taken out and shot to death, — first having 
been told, it is said, to run for his life. This cowardly murder 
Is assigned by one of the prisoners as a reason why the Border 
Ruffian force, the command of which was resigned by Gen- 
eral Atchison to General Reid on the same day, began to melt 
away. ^3 Spencer Kellogg Brown, the boy prisoner, was set 
free by the Border Ruffians, only to die, if anything, more 
tragically than Kaiser. After having been a useful Federal 
spy, he was caught by the Confederates and hanged in Rich- 
mond on September 25, 1863, when but twenty-one years 
old.®° The other four prisoners were sent down the Missouri 
River on the Polar Star, under pain of death if they re- 
turned to Kansas. At St. Louis they were permitted to go 
their way. 

The news of Brown's defeat and the burning of Osawato- 
mie intensified an altogether critical situation In Kansas. The 
acting Governor, Woodson, was openly pro-slavery; It was 
his proclamation of August 25, declaring Kansas to be "in 
a state of open Insurrection and rebellion," and calling on all 
good citizens to put down the "large bodies of armed men, 
many of whom have just arrived from the States," which gave 
Atchison and Reid's army the excuse to masquerade once 
more as Kansas militia, or assistants to the legally constituted 
authorities. That they were a large body of armed men, all of 
whom had just arrived from another State, did not in the least 
excite Mr. Woodson's distrust. Three days after the battle of 
Osawatomie, on September 5, he even went so far as to order 
Lleut.-Col. Cooke, of the United States Dragoons, to proceed 
at once to Topeka, to Invest the town and disarm and arrest 
"all the insurrectionists or aggressive invaders against the 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 251 

organized government" to be found at or near Topeka, and to 
retain them as prisoners. He was especially ordered to level 
all their breastworks, forts or fortifications, to the ground, and 
to intercept all armed persons coming over "Lane's trail" 
from the Nebraska line to Topeka.^^ Naturally, Lieut.-Col. 
Cooke declined to obey so extraordinary and partisan an 
order, for which decision he was subsequently highly com- 
mended by the Secretary of War. Jefferson Davis, however, 
was so greatly wrought up over the situation in the Terri- 
tory on September 3, that "the position of the insurgents" 
seemed to him "open rebellion against the laws and consti- 
tutional authorities, with such manifestation of a purpose to 
spread devastation over the land, as no longer justifies fur- 
ther hesitation or indulgence." In thus expressing himself to 
General Smith, he added that "patriotism and humanity alike 
require that rebellion should be promptly crushed. ..." To 
this end, General Smith was notified that the President had 
ordered the organization of the Kansas militia ; that the gen- 
eral was to ask for as much of this force as he needed for the 
work of pacification, and, if he could not get sufficient aid 
from this source, he was authorized to call upon the Govern- 
ors of Kentucky and Illinois for the two regiments of foot 
militia requisitioned that same day by President Pierce from 
each State, in accordance with his constitutional rights. ^^ An 
excellent regiment of regular infantry, the Sixth, had already 
been sent to the Territory as a reinforcement to the First Cav- 
alry and Second Dragoons. As it turned out, the Territory 
could raise only a few companies of bona fide militia for Gen- 
eral Smith, but a sudden change in events made it unneces- 
sary for him to ask for more troops, or to call on the Illinois 
and Kentucky executives. 

General Smith himself, in explaining, under date of Sep- 
tember 10, to the War Department how it was that Osa- 
watomie was sacked when there were regulars in the vicinity, 
reported that Brown had had thirteen men killed, and bluntly 
added, "though there is nothing to regret as to those who 
suffered, yet the act was a grossly unlawful act, and deprives 
those who took part in it of all consideration for the future." 
Their consideration in the near future was already the prob- 
lem of Lieut.-Col. Cooke; for Reid's force, after retiring 



252' JOHN BROWN 

to Missouri, was again being recruited for a fresh and final 
attack on Lawrence. Meanwhile, the Free State men were 
Cooke's immediate care. Lane, still pretending to be "Joe 
Cook," had made a weak effort to pursue Reid, but had fallen 
back just as he arrived within striking distance. Then, on 
learning that Marshal Donaldson and two deputies, supported 
by bands of bogus militia, were raiding Free State homes 
with warrants for the owners, and burning their houses if 
the owners were absent. Lane and Colonel Harvey decided 
to march upon Lecompton, make an armed demonstration, 
and demand the release of the newest prisoners and of those 
who had been arrested in August for complicity in the raid on 
Franklin. 

After some marching and counter-marching, a force from 
Lawrence under Lane — who had concealed himself in the 
ranks — and Captain Samuel Walker arrived at Lecompton 
on September 5, late in the afternoon. Lieut. -Col. Cooke 
instantly ordered out his regiment, took up a position be- 
tween Walker's men and the town, and notified Walker that 
he could fight that day only with United States troops.^^ For 
this privilege the Free State men were not thirsting ; but, with 
the aid of the veteran dragoon colonel, they accomplished the 
release of the prisoners. Woodson had already decided to let 
them go, but his order, not yet executed, was now put into 
force. As the Missouri militia had been dismissed by Wood- 
son that morning and had almost all left, Lieut. -Col. Cooke 
greatly regretted the appearance of Lane's men ; he assured 
them that "everything was going in their favor, and that it 
apparently would be so if they would refrain entirely from 
reprisals, or any outrages, return to their occupations, and 
show moderation." ^^ 

This good advice the Free State men refused to take. On 
returning to Lawrence, they found it full of refugees from 
Leavenworth, where William Phillips, the Free State lawyer 
who was tarred and feathered in May, 1855, had been deliber- 
ately murdered on September 2, as a result of the election for 
mayor. From elsewhere in the Territory the law-abiding and 
the lawless were also moving into Lawrence, and to all of them 
the refugees from Leavenworth, with their stories of the shoot- 
ing of Phillips in his own house, of murders and other out- 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 253 

rages along the roads, and the driving out of hundreds of 
defenceless women and children, made a strong appeal. At a 
council of war on September 7, Lane, Harvey and other officers 
and men of the Free State forces decided to march on Leaven- 
worth. This council was interrupted by the cheering on the 
streets with which John Brown's arrival in Lawrence was 
greeted. Henry Reisner, of Topeka, an eye-witness, remembers 
distinctly Brown's impassive demeanor and his bent figure 
on his gray horse, with his gun across the saddle before 
him. The uproar of cheering was, he says, "as great as if the 
President had come to town, but John Brown seemed not 
to hear it and paid not the slightest attention." ^^ Brown 
brought with him his sick adherent, Luke F. Parsons, and 
was followed the next day by his son Jason. When asked 
where he had been since his retreat under Reid's fire across 
the Marais des Cygnes at Osawatomie, he related that he had 
encamped on the Hauser farm, two and a half miles from Osa- 
watomie, for about a week, at first attempting to fortify it. 
But the lack of men and the illness of Parsons and others 
prevented.^^ 

From there Jason Brown and his father both went to their 
friend Ottawa Jones, on Ottawa Creek, where they saw the 
ruins of his home. Jones, who was an educated Indian, with 
a New England woman for his wife, had befriended and 
helped to feed John Brown and his party while they were 
in the brush before and after Black Jack. No other charge 
could have been brought against him than friendliness for 
Free State people; but a part of Atchison's army, guided by 
Henry Sherman,* not only destroyed the house the evening 
of the battle at Osawatomie, but robbed Mrs. Jones of every- 
thing valuable. Not content with that, they partially cut 
the throat of a helpless man, Nathaniel Parker, who was ill 
in an upstairs room, and threw him over the bank of the 
creek. 

It is easy to imagine John Brown's indignation at this out- 
rage; but there was nothing to be accomplished now south of 
Lawrence, and so, placing Parsons in a wagon, he had driven 

* "Henry Sherman led the mob that burnt Ottawa Jones's house last summer 
and tried to kill Jones." — Rev. S. L. Adair to Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Davis, Osa- 
watomie, March 4, 1857. — Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis. 



254 JOHN BROWN 

with him to Lawrence. After Brown's arrival, the Sunday 
morning council reassembled and decided on the movement 
against Leavenworth. Most of the men thereupon offered the 
command to John Brown, — a responsibility he declined out 
of deference to the other leaders; and it was then entrusted 
to Colonel James A. Harvey. With two companies, Harvey 
marched on Easton and Alexandria, in Leavenworth County, 
helped himself to pro-slavery provisions in the now approved 
fashion, and then captured a small company of pro-slavery 
men on Slough Creek, near what is now Oskaloosa. John 
Brown did not accompany the command, which never reached 
Leavenworth; it was recalled by a message from Lane, advis- 
ing the abandonment of the object because of the arrival of 
the new Governor, John W. Geary. Almost simultaneously 
with Harvey's movements, Charles Whipple, better known as 
Aaron D. Stevens, raided Osawkee, a pro-slavery settlement, 
taking eighty horses and nearly as many arms. Stevens was 
now colonel of the "Second Regiment Kansas Volunteers." 
"We in Kansas," he wrote to his brother about this time, 
"have struggled against every species of oppression that the 
wickedness of man invented or the power of the Devil ever 
enforced."" Carrying off eighty pro-slavery horses was in his 
eyes no wrong; the United States marshal, Donaldson, thought 
differently, and seven days after the raid, on September 17, 
he arrested twelve of Whipple's men.^^ Four of them, includ- 
ing John H. Kagi, who met his end at Harper's Ferry under 
Brown, were committed by Judge Cato for highway robbery, 
— an action they doubtless described as another Border Ruf- 
fian outrage. "What in thunder," wrote Charles F. Gilman, 
a Council Grove, Kansas, leader, on hearing of some of these 
Free State raids, "is Missouri doing; is she going to let these 
miserable, thieving, lying Nigger-Stealers and horsewhipping 
scamps take this line Territory without striking a blow for its 
deliverance?" ^^ 

September 10 witnessed the reunion of John Brown with 
his long imprisoned son and namesake, the political prisoners 
being then freed. John Brown, Jr., who had never even been 
indicted, was released on one thousand dollars bail, and hurried 
at once to Lawrence. "This evening," wrote the correspondent 
of the New York Times, "large numbers assembled in front 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 255 

of General Lane's headquarters, where they were addressed 
by Judge Smith, the Rev. Dr. Nute, E. B. Whitman, Gov- 
ernor Robinson, General Lane and John Brown. The meet- 
ing was one of the most enthusiastic and heart-cheering of 
any that has ever been held in Kansas." ^^ John Brown, Jr., 
brought his chains, worn bright by long use, with him; they 
were subsequently forwarded to Henry Ward Beecher as a 
souvenir of Bleeding Kansas. But a better era than the Ter- 
ritory had yet known was now ushered in with the arrival of 
John W. Geary, the new Governor. He reached Lecompton 
from Leavenworth at about the same time that the Lawrence 
jubilation over the release of the prisoners was at an end. The 
next day he issued a reassuring address to the people, and 
two excellent proclamations, which, like his first report of 
September 9 to Secretary Marcy, show how clearly he grasped 
the actual situation. ^^ In his address he urged that Kansas 
begin anew; that the past be buried in oblivion. 

"Men of the North — men of the South — of the East and of the 
West m Kansas — you, and you alone," he said, " have the remedies 
in your own hands. Will you not suspend fratricidal strife? Will 
you not cease to regard each other as enemies, and look upon one 
another as the children of a common mother, and come and reason 
together?" 

The blame for the situation he placed upon " men outside 
of the Territory, who . . . have endeavored to stir up in- 
ternal strife, and to array brother against brother." In his 
first proclamation he ordered the complete disbandment of 
the pro-slavery militia; in the other he ordered the forma- 
tion of a new body, which he intended should be composed 
of bona fide settlers, and be mustered by his order into the 
service of the United States. His policy was, first of all, to 
stop all lawlessness and guerrilla warfare, and in this he was 
soon successful. He was as bitter against the pro-slavery 
murderers of Leavenworth as against the Abolition ma- 
rauders of the Whipple type, and became, as time went on, 
more and more favorable to the Free State side, with the 
result that he finally resigned office for the reason that the 
Buchanan administration, alienated by his friendliness to the 
Northern side, withdrew from him its support. 



256 JOHN BROWN 

One of the immediate blessings of Governor Geary's arrival 
was the prompt disappearance from the scene of General 
Lane. He left for Nebraska at once, with a small band, 
stopping on the way, however, to attack some pro-slavery 
raiders. Finding them well barricaded in log-cabins at 
Hickory Point, Lane sent back to Topeka for reinforcements. 
Whipple and fifty men responded, but on their arrival, Lane 
wanted Captain Bickerton's cannon and sent to Lawrence for 
them. Colonel Harvey, just in from Slough Creek, and about 
two hundred men responded, and arrived at Hickory Point 
on Sunday morning, September 14. Meanwhile, General 
Lane abandoned the siege on hearing of Governor Geary's 
proclamations. As Harvey's men came straight across coun- 
try, contrary to orders, they missed both Lane and Whipple. 
Nevertheless, they at once attacked the pro-slavery force, 
and after several hours of fighting captured it, killing one 
and wounding four, and having five wounded on their side.^^ 
Both sides fraternized, agreed to retire without plunder, and 
then separated. But Harvey's Nemesis was at hand in the 
person of the Captain T. J. Wood already referred to, who 
appeared on the scene that night with two troops of the First 
Cavalry and a deputymarshal, with whom he had been search- 
ing for Whipple's band. Harvey escaped, but Captain Wood 
returned to Lecompton with one hundred and one prisoners 
and such of their arms as he could find, including the cannon. 
The prisoners were shown no favors, were all kept in confine- 
ment for some time, and, after enduring genuine hardships, 
were tried at the October term. The majority were acquit- 
ted; a number received sentences at hard labor, with ball and 
chain, for periods of from five to ten years. With the men 
of Whipple's force and others, there were now one hundred 
and eighteen Free State men awaiting trial at one time, — 
quite enough to serve as a vigorous deterrent to the other 
Free Soilers. John Brown might easily have shared their fate. 
Those sentenced did not, however, remain in jail long; they 
had all escaped or been pardoned by the following March. But 
Captain Wood's great haul was a stunning blow to Free State 
lawlessness. 

Governor Geary made his first visit to Lawrence on Septem- 
ber 13. News having been received by him that pro-slavery 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 257 

forces were threatening the town, he routed out Lieut. -Col. 
Cooke's troops in the early morning of September 13." Four 
hundred soldiers left at 2.20 A. M., the governor going with 
them, and they arrived at Lawrence at sunrise to find every- 
thing quiet. Three hundred Missourians had, however, been 
seen the day before, and Governor Geary had received a 
communication from General Heiskell, announcing that in 
response to acting Governor Woodson he was on Mission 
Creek with eight hundred men, "ready for duty and impa- 
tient to act." Governor Geary found between two and three 
hundred men in Lawrence and, being well received, addressed 
them earnestly and then conversed at length with Governor 
Robinson and other leaders, upon whom he made a favora- 
ble impression. John Brown was not at these gatherings. By 
nine o'clock the Governor and the troops left on their return 
to Lecompton, the citizens giving three hearty cheers for 
Governor Geary and Lieut. -Col. Cooke as they rode away. 
The very next evening, on September 14, Geary again ordered 
all of Lieut. -Col. Cooke's troops to Lawrence in hot haste, 
to prevent an impending collision.''^ They left at once under 
Lieut. -Col. Joseph E. Johnston, First Cavalry, later the 
distinguished Confederate general. The next morning Lieut. - 
Col. Cooke and Governor Geary followed. This time it had 
been no cry of wolf. Atchison, Reid, Heiskell, Stringfellow, 
Whitfield and the other Missouri leaders had arrived at 
Franklin, determined on a final attempt to conquer Kansas by 
force of arms. They had with them no less than twenty-seven 
hundred men, some of them completely uniformed and well 
equipped. Besides infantry and cavalry there was a six- 
pounder battery, — in all a remarkably strong force. Its ad- 
vance guard had come in sight of the men on guard at Law- 
rence on the afternoon of the 14th, and after an hour's 
shooting at long range, the Missourians had retired on Frank- 
lin. Naturally, the people of Lawrence were in great alarm; 
few were able to sleep that night, remembering as they did 
Atchison's last visit to their town. There was, therefore, 
general rejoicing when, on the next morning, Lieut. -Col. 
Johnston's troops were found to be encamped on Mount 
Oread, the hill overlooking Lawrence, where they had ar- 
rived during the night. 



258 JOHN BROWN 

The town of Lawrence was at this time a strange mixture 
of ''stone houses, log cabins, frame buildings, shake shanties 
and other nondescript erections," so wrote Colonel Richard 
J. Hinton in his journal on September 3.'^ He added: 

"Lawrence presents a sad picture of the evils this partizan war- 
fare is bringing over us. Buildings half finished or deserted are now 
occupied as quarters for the small army of devoted men who are 
fighting the battle of Freedom. Trade is at a standstill. Work is 
not thought of, and the street is full of the eager, anxious citizens 
who cluster eagerly around every new-comer, drinking in greedily 
the news, which generally is exaggerated by the fears or imagination 
of those who tell it. To a stranger, it seems a wild confusion, and 
however much they may desire, the incidents come in so fast that 
it is morally impossible to form a just estimate of the true condition 
of things." 

The defenders of this straggling town had erected some for- 
tifications, of which they were very proud, a stone "fort" of 
the remains of the Free State Hotel, and four earthworks 
which excited the risibles of Lieut.-Col. Cooke and his officers, 
— "ridiculous attempts at defences," Cooke officially called 
them, "which I could ride over." But the day before Lieut.- 
Col. Johnston's arrival, these amateur fortifications were 
filled with very earnest Free Soil men, ready to defend Law- 
rence at any cost. In the absence of Lane, the command was as 
much in the hands of Major J. B. Abbott and Captain Joseph 
Cracklin, of the "Stubbs," as of any one else. Some partisans 
of John Brown have attempted to prove that he was in com- 
mand, but the evidence is conclusive that he declined Major 
Abbott's offer of the command of a company, and then, at his 
request, went from one of the "forts" to another, encouraging 
the men, urging them to fire low, and giving them such mili- 
tary information as was his, everywhere, according to Major 
Abbott, with excellent results.''^ Other men who were in the 
forts that day, when Captain Cracklin and his "Stubbs" 
returned the long range fire of the Border Ruffians, have tes- 
tified to the value of Brown's presence, and the inspiration he 
gave them. To a group of citizens in the main street he made 
the following address, standing on a dry -goods box: 

"Gentlemen — It is said there are twenty-five hundred Mis- 
sourians down at Franklin, and that they will be here in two hours. 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 259 

You can see for yourselves the smoke they are making by setting 
fire to the houses in that town. This is probably the last opportu- 
nity you will have of seeing a fight, so that you had better do your 
best. If they should come up and attack us, don't yell and make 
a great noise, but remain perfectly silent and still. Wait till they 
get within twenty-five yards of you, get a good object, be sure you 
see the hind sight of your gun, then fire. A great deal of powder 
and lead and very precious time is wasted by shooting too high. 
You had better aim at their legs than at their heads. In either case, 
be sure of the hind sight of your gun. It is for this reason that I 
myself have so many times escaped, for, if all the bullets which have 
ever been aimed at me had hit me I would have been as full of holes 
as a riddle." " 

Fortunately for all concerned, the worth of the forts and the 
mettle of their defenders were never tested. The aggressive 
and active Governor rode into town with Lieut. -Col. Cooke 
at ten on the morning of the 15th. They found that Lieut.- 
Col. Johnston had distributed his men in strong positions 
on the outskirts of the town. Scarcely stopping to confer 
with that officer, Cooke and Geary pushed right on to meet 
a Missourian mounted company then in plain sight, not 
two miles away. This company at once constituted itself a 
guard of honor for the colonel and the Governor. At Franklin 
the pro-slavery generals and chief officers were called together 
in a large room "and very ably and effectively addressed by 
Governor Geary " — so Cooke reported. After some inflamma- 
tory speeches from the other side, the veteran dragoon himself 
addressed the assembly, urging them, 

"as an old resident of Kansas and friend to the MIssourians to sub- 
mit to the patriotic demand that they should return, assuring them 
of my perfect confidence in the inflexible justice of the Governor, 
and that it would become my painful duty to sustain him at the 
cannon's mouth. Authority prevailed, and the militia honorably 
submitted to march off, to be disbanded at their place of rendez- 
vous." 

It would have been well, however, if some of Cooke's men 
had supervised this withdrawal. He himself went back to 
Lawrence with the Governor and calmed the greatly excited 
town, while Governor Geary again addressed the principal 
men. They bivouacked with the troops, who slept under 
arms after two night m.arches with scant provisions. The next 



26o JOHN BROWN 

day, Cooke and the Governor returned to Lecompton, following 
the trail of the notorious Kickapoo Rangers. Some of these 
men had burned the saw-mill near Franklin, "lifted" horses 
and cattle, and mortally wounded David C. Buffum, for refus- 
ing to give up the horse with which he was ploughing. Gov- 
ernor Geary insisted on Judge Cato's taking the dying man's 
deposition, and, to his credit be it said, made every effort, 
though with little success, to have the murderer punished, the 
pro-slavery judges giving no assistance. ^^ 

Thus ended the last organized Missourian invasion of 
Kansas, and for a time thereafter the Territory was at peace, 
particularly as Lieut. -Cols. Cooke and Johnston were active 
in capturing armed Free Soil men coming in from Iowa. They 
took prisoners on October 9, for instance, two hundred and 
twenty-three armed immigrants, headed by S. C. Pomeroy, 
Colonel Eldredge and others. ^^ By November 12 the Gov- 
ernor of Kansas announced to General Smith, commanding 
the Department of the West, that peace prevailed throughout 
the Territory, for which fact Governor Geary deserves great 
credit. In consideration of these conditions and of the ap- 
proach of winter, all the regular troops, with the exception of 
two companies, returned to their regular stations.^" 

The disbandment of Atchison's army was a fatal blow to the 
hopes of the Missourians, and in the South generally it was 
now beginning to be understood that the battle for Kansas 
was rapidly being lost. Even before Atchison's disbandment, 
an intelligent South Carolinian, member of the Territorial 
militia, writing home in a moment of anger at the release of the 
Free State prisoners in the presence of Lane's and Harvey's 
men at Lecompton, blurted out the truth about the useless- 
ness of those Southerners remaining w^ho had come merely to 
battle: 

"And why should we remain? We cannot fight, and of course 
cannot prevent our enemy from voting. The object of our mission 
will then, of course, be defeated, and we had as well return. Which- 
ever way the Kansas question be decided, 't is my opinion, and the 
opinion with all with whom I have conversed, that a dissolution 
of the Union will be effected by it. The Abolitionists themselves 
say they 'will have Kansas if it splits the Union into a thousand 
pieces.'"*^ 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 261 

Not even the abstention of the Free State men from the elec- 
tion of October 6 for delegate to Congress, for members of 
the Legislature, and on the question of a Constitutional con- 
vention, and the consequent election of Whitfield and other 
pro-slavery men, raised any genuine hopes in the hearts of the 
slavery leaders. 

The restoration of peace, the release of his son and the 
approach of winter were the reasons why John Brown decided 
to leave Kansas for the East in search of rest and additional 
funds to carry on the war for freedom. He had never meant 
to be a settler, and there was nothing left to take him or his 
sons back to Osawatomie. Their cabins, such as they were, 
had been destroyed, and with them all their personal property, 
and the books of John Brown, Jr., upon which he placed a 
value of three hundred dollars. This son thought that to pre- 
serve his reason he must return to a placid life and quiet 
scenes.^2 John Brown himself, suffering from the prevailing 
dysentery and chills and fever, was compelled to leave in a 
wagon. He wrote to his family, however, that he would 
return to Kansas if the troubles continued. ^^ With him into 
Iowa went his three sons, John, Jason and Owen, while his 
two daughters-in-law and their little sons took the river route, 
now open to Free Soil traffic of this kind. 

On departing from the Territory, Brown left the remainder 
of his Osawatomie "volunteer-regular" company under the 
command of James H. Holmes, with instructions to "carry 
the war into Africa." This Holmes did by raiding into Mis- 
souri and appropriating some horses and arms and other 
property, for which he was promptly and properly indicted 
and long pursued by the Kansas and Missouri authorities.** 
By October 10, John Brown and his sons were safely at 
Tabor, after a very narrow escape from the vigilant Lieut. - 
Col. Cooke, who, reporting on October 7 from a "camp near 
Nebraska boundary," wrote: "I arrived here yesterday, at 
noon. I just missed the arrest of the notorious Osawatomie 
outlaw. Brown. The night before, having ascertained that 
after dark he had stopped for the night at a house six miles 
from the camp, I sent a party who found at 12 o'clock that 
he had gone."^^ Evidently, Lieut.-Col. Cooke was not aware 
of Osawatomie Brown's presence at Lawrence when he was 



262 JOHN BROWN 

there; nor did he know of the "outlaw's" other narrow es- 
capes from capture. One of these Incidents of the return from 
Kansas is thus related by Jason Brown : 

"We crossed the river at Topeka. We had a four-mule team, 
and a one-horse covered wagon. The mule team was full of arms 
and ammunition that father was taking out to Tabor. I cannot 
remember just now the name of the driver, but he was a man 
who was always faithful to us and had stuck to us right through. 
In the covered, one-horse team was a fugitive slave, covered over 
with hay, father, lying sick, Owen, John and I. Owen, John and I 
walked all we could to save the horse. At New Holton we came 
out on a high prairie and saw the U. S. troops — a large body — 
encamped on the stream below. When John and I saw that, we 
thought we had fallen into a trap. 'We'll go right down there,' said 
father. 'If we do,' said John, 'we'll be captured. I for one won't 
go.' 'I, for another, won't go,' said I. So father drove right on 
down, and camped 7M5/ outside their pickets, that night. But before 
he got within two miles of that camp of troops, John and I left him, 
— it was dark — and walked about six or eight miles — I am not 
sure of the distance — around — and met father next morning, 
about sunrise on the Nebraska road. Owen, as always, stuck with 
father. For a time we and father travelled different roads and did 
not meet. We finally got both wagons together at the ferry at 
Nebraska City and camped. Next morning we crossed the river, 
by rope ferry, into the southwest corner of Iowa. When we landed 
we let the contraband out from the hay, fixed him up the best we 
could, and travelled on to Tabor. There Owen stopped, and the 
negro there found work. John and I had the horse to go to Iowa 
City with. We rode and tied, to that point, where the railway 
began.'"" 

Before leaving Lawrence, John Brown received two letters 
from Charles Robinson, both of them of special Interest be- 
cause of the Governor's subsequent attacks upon Brown In the 
never-ending and extremely bitter controversy as to whether 
Brown or Lane or Robinson was the real saviour of Kansas : 

Lawrence, Sept. 15, 1856. 

Capt. John Brown: My Dear Sir: — I take this opportunity 
to express to you my sincere gratification that the late report that 
you were among the killed at the battle of Osawatomie is incorrect. 

Your course, so far as I have been informed, has been such as to 
merit the highest praise from every patriot, and I cheerfully accord 
to you my heartfelt thanks for your prompt, efficient and timely 
action against the Invaders of our rights and the murderers of our 
citizens. History will give your name a proud place on her pages, 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 263 

and posterity will pay homage to your heroism in the cause of God 
and Humanity. 

Trusting that you will conclude to remain in Kansas and serve 
during the war the cause you have done so much to sustain, and 
with earnest prayers for your health and protection from the shafts 
of Death that so thickly beset your path, I subscribe myself, 
Very respectfully 

Your Ob't Servant 

C. Robinson." 

The other letter, dated earlier, reads as follows: 

Lawrence, Sept 13, '56 
Capt. Brown 
Dear Sir 

Gov Geary has been here and talks very well. He promises to 
protect us, etc., etc. There will be no attempt to arrest anyone for 
a few days, and I think no attempt to arrest you is contemplated 
by him. He talks of letting the past be forgotten so far as may be 
and of commencing anew. 

If convenient can you not come into town and see us. I will then 
tell you all that the Gov. said and talk of some other matters. 
Very respectfully 

C. Robinson ^^ 

On the back of this note is a pencilled memorandum of 
John Brown, Jr., to his father, which includes among other 
advice these words: "Don't go into that secret military 
refugee plan talked of by Robinson, I beg of you." Over this 
letter and sentence there was a vitriolic controversy between 
John Brown, Jr., and Governor Robinson in 1883 and 1884, 
the former insisting that at the private meeting requested, the 
Governor asked Brown to undertake the kidnapping of the 
leading pro-slavery generals, and the doing away of others in 
Pottawatomie fashion, and that his father replied: "If you 
know of any job of that sort that needs to be done, I advise 
you to do it yourself." ^^ No one else has publicly accused 
Governor Robinson of sinking quite to the depths of urging 
deliberate assassination, and it is needless to say that he in- 
dignantly denied the charge. Those who would decide where 
the truth lies must make up their minds which man's word 
was the weightier. 

Free from any other blood-stain, John Brown quitted the 
ravaged Territory. If he had deliberately committed the 



264 JOHN BROWN 

Pottawatomie murders in order to embroil Kansans and Mis- 
sourians, he had every reason to view with satisfaction the 
results of his bloody deed. The carnival of crime and the civil 
war inaugurated by the sacking of Lawrence and the midnight 
assassinations in the hitherto peaceful region of Osawatomie, 
had brought eastern Kansas to the lowest state of her for- 
tunes. Governor Geary accurately portrayed it in his farewell 
to the people of Kansas on March 12 of the next year: 

"I reached Kansas and entered upon the discharge of my official 
duties in the most gloomy hour of her history. Desolation and ruin 
reigned on every hand ; homes and firesides were deserted ; the smoke 
of burning dwellings darkened the atmosphere; women and chil- 
dren, driven from their habitations, wandered over the prairies and 
among the woodland, or sought refuge and protection even among 
the Indian tribes; the highways were infested with numerous preda- 
tory bands, and the towns were fortified and garrisoned by armies 
of conflicting partisans, each excited almost to frenzy, and deter- 
mined upon mutual extermination. Such was, without exaggera- 
tion, the condition of the Territory at the period of my arrival."^" 

Between November i, 1855, and December i, 1856, about 
two hundred people are known to have lost their lives in the 
anarchical conditions that prevailed, and the property loss in 
this period is officially set down at not less than two millions 
of dollars, one half of which was sustained by bona fide settlers, 
the larger portion falling on the Free State emigrants.^ ^ How- 
ever superior in character and intelligence and industry the 
latter indubitably were in the beginning, there was but little 
to choose between the Border Ruffians and the Kansas Ruf- 
fians in midsummer of 1856. The Whipples and Harveys and 
Browns plundered and robbed as freely on one side as did the 
Martin Whites, the Reids and the Tituses on the other, and 
there was not the slightest difference in their methods. Both 
sides respected women; but in remorseless killing of individ- 
uals, the Border Ruffians were guilty of a savagery that would 
place them far below the scale of the Free Soil men, were it not 
for the massacre on the Pottawatomie. If the Eastern press 
discreetly refused to believe a single Free State outrage, or to 
portray raids like those on Franklin in their true colors, the 
pro-slavery partisans met every charge with the allegation 
that it was an "Abolition lie." In the eyes of New England, 



THE FOE IN THE FIELD 265 

Reid's taking the lives of Free Soil men at Osawatomie was 
"butchery," while the exterminating of Border Ruffians was 
merely "killing," — as John Brown phrased these incidents in 
his story of that fight. Probably no one in the East in Octo- 
ber, 1856, realized the utter demoralization of the Free State 
men, or the violence and lawlessness of their methods. For this 
ignorance the excitement of the Presidential campaign, which 
resulted in Fremont's defeat, may have been in part respon- 
sible. To many of the radical Abolitionists in the East, the 
bloodshed in Kansas was a plain indication that slavery could 
hereafter be ended only by the bayonet. ^^ 

It is, of course, undeniable that the Border Ruffian outrages 
in Kansas enormously aroused the North on the slavery ques- 
tion and prepared the way for the tremendous outburst of 
excitement or anger over the Harper's Ferry raid. But it is 
idle to assert that Kansas would never have been free, had it 
not weltered in blood in 1856; if the Sharp's rifle policy had 
not been followed. Climate and soil fought in Kansas on the 
side of the Free State men. The Southerners themselves com- 
plained that their settlers who did reach Kansas were inocu- 
lated with the virus of liberty, became Free Soilers and often 
freed their slaves.^^ xhe familiar slave crops never could have 
been raised in Kansas with its bleak winters. Moreover, the 
South was never a colonizing section; the history of the set- 
tlement of our Western communities proves this, if the fate 
of Buford's band and its inability to settle down anywhere 
did not. The final failure of the slave-power to hold the great 
advantage it had in Kansas in 1855 was not due to fear of 
weapons, but to inability to place farmers and pioneers on the 
battle-ground. The wave of emigrants from the East was 
from the beginning certain to roll over the Kansas plains, even 
if it had not been expedited by the Emigrant Aid Societies, to 
whom due credit for hastening the turning of the tide must be 
given. 

Equally certain is it that no one man decided the fate of 
Kansas. In this narrative no effort has been made to estimate 
the relative values to Kansas of Eli Thayer, the founder of the 
Emigrant Aid movement, or of Charles Robinson, or of James 
H.'Lane, or of Brown. It would be an invidious undertaking; 
to enter into the bitter disputes of the partisan followers of 



266 JOHN BROWN 

Robinson, Lane and Brown is a task which no historian 
would attempt unless compelled by his theme to do so. Their 
adulators have forgotten that properly to understand and esti- 
mate the forces brought into play in Kansas, one rnust fairly 
go back to the foundation of our government. The irrepressi- 
ble conflict between freedom and slavery would have gone on 
and come to a head had Kansas never been thrown open to 
settlement, and that Territory must have been free had there 
been no Lane and no Robinson and no John Brown. The 
great nation-stirring movement of which they were a part 
can best be likened to a glacier; for decades it moved imper- 
ceptibly; suddenly the people it overshadowed awoke to the 
fact that their very existence was threatened by this mon- 
strous mass of prejudice and wrong and crime. 

Of John Brown, as he left Kansas after just a year of 
activity, with the most important period of his service to the 
Territory behind him, it may truthfully be said that his deeds, 
good and evil, had appealed strongly to the imagination of 
all who read of him sympathetically. Like a relentless High- 
land chieftain of old, he appeared to personify indomitable, 
unswerving resistance to the forces of slavery. To those Free 
Soilers who believed in the argumentative methods of the Old 
Testament, his name was henceforth one to conjure with. 
Not in his methods, however, but in his uncompromising 
hostility to that human bondage for which he was ready to 
sacrifice his life, lies his undoubted claim to a place in the 
history of Kansas and of the Nation. 



CHAPTER VIII 

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 

At Tabor, Iowa, John Brown, weak and ill, met with a hearty 
reception at the hands of that colony of Ohioans. Under the 
leadership of George B. Gaston, for four years a missionary 
among the Pawnee Indians, and the Rev. John Todd, there 
had been founded at Tabor, in 1848, a community which was 
intended to be another Oberlin.^ Most of its settlers came 
from that earnestly religious and bravely anti-slavery town. 
They were steeped in its Abolition views and in sympathy 
with its protests against hyper-Calvinism, — in short, brought 
with them the Oberlin devotion to truth and liberty. It was 
the most congenial soil upon which John Brown had set foot 
since his departure from Ohio. Here all men and women 
thought his own thoughts and spoke his own words. Though 
it was then but a straggling prairie town of twenty-five houses, 
with little of the present beauty of its wide and richly shaded 
streets, Tabor was ever an attractive haven for John Brown 
and his sons. On the overland route into Kansas, it was far 
enough from the Territory to be free from disorder, and the 
arriving and departing emigrant trains gave it an especial 
interest and kept it in touch with the storm-centre of the 
nation. News from Kansas came regularly, while the scattered 
pro-slavery sympathizers in the neighborhood, who acted as 
spies for the Missourians, or those who passed through en 
route to the Territory, added zest to the town's life, particu- 
larly when the Southern visitors were in search of the slaves 
who passed on to safety and freedom by the underground 
route. This long counted Tabor one of its important far West- 
ern stations. 

Mrs. Gaston has left the following account of conditions 
in Tabor during the time of John Brown's visit: 

"That summer and autumn our houses, before too full, were 
much overfilled, and our comforts shared with those passing to and 
from Kansas to secure it to Freedom. When houses would hold no 



268 JOHN BROWN 

more, woodsheds were temporized for bedrooms, where the sick 
and dying were cared for. Barns also were fixed for sleeping rooms. 
Every place where a bed could be put or a blanket thrown down 
was at once so occupied. There were comers and goers all times of 
day or night — meals at all hours — many free hotels, perhaps en- 
tertaining angels unawares. After battles they were here for rest 
— before for preparation. General Lane once stayed three weeks 
secretly while it was reported abroad that he was back in Indiana 
for recruits and supplies, which came ere long, consisting of all kinds 
of provisions, Sharps rifles, powder and lead. A cannon packed in 
corn made its way through the enemy's lines, and ammunition of 
all kinds in clothing and kitchen furniture, etc., etc. Our cellars 
contained barrels of powder and boxes of rifles. Often our chairs, 
tables, beds and such places were covered with what weapons every 
one carried about him, so that if one needed and got time to rest a 
little in the day time, we had to remove the Kansas furniture, or 
rest with loaded revolvers, cartridge boxes and bowie knives piled 
around them, and boxes of swords under the bed."^ 

Here John Brown stayed about a week after his arrival 
from Kansas. Here he stored the arms he had brought with 
him, and this place he chose as the coming headquarters of the 
band of one hundred "volunteer-regulars" for whom he now 
planned to raise funds in the East to the amount of twenty 
thousand dollars, and here actual training for war-service 
against the forces of slavery was soon to begin. For this was 
the plan which John Brown's brain had now formulated. The 
peace of Geary he did not value; indeed, he unjustly de- 
nounced the Governor at this period as having been unpardon- 
ably slow in reaching Lawrence with the Federal troops, when 
that town was menaced by Atchison and Reid. He wanted a 
secret unpaid force that would subsist as best It might between 
periods of activity, but be ready wuth rifle, pistol and sword to 
come together to repel Invasion, or even to undertake a coun- 
ter-invasion. If he rightly judged that hostilities between the 
two contending parties In Kansas w^ere not yet over, he over- 
estimated the likelihood of a fresh outbreak when the spring 
should come again. By then he hoped to return to Kansas 
with plenty of arms and ammunition, and recruit the men he 
wanted. 

After his brief stay for recuperation, John Brown set out 
over the overland route to Chicago by way of Iowa City and 
Sprlngdale, arriving there about the 22d or 23d of October 



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MAIN STREET OF TABOR, IOWA 




THE PUBLIC SQUARE AT TABOR 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 269 

with his sons, Jason and John Brown, Jr., who had preceded 
him from Tabor. The father reported at once at the offices of 
the National Kansas Committee, where his presence aroused 
great interest. He was soon asked to accompany the train 
of "freight" for the Free State cause then being conducted 
through Iowa to Kansas by Dr. J. P. Root, in order to advise 
that leader. 

"Capt. Brown," wrote General J. D. Webster to Dr. Root 
on October 25, "says the immediate introduction of the sup- 
plies is not of much consequence compared to the danger of 
losing them." On the next day, Horace White, then assistant 
secretary of the National Kansas Committee, later editor of 
the Chicago Tribune and New York Evening Post, wrote to 
him this note:^ 

Office National Kansas Committee, 
Chicago, Oct. 26, 1856. 

Captain Brown, — We expect Mr. Arny, our General Agent 
just from Kansas to be in tomorrow morning. He has been in the 
territory particularly to ascertain the condition of certain affairs 
for our information. I know he will very much regret not having 
seen you. If it is not absolutely essential for you to go on tonight, 
I would recommend you to wait & see him. I shall confer with 
Col. Dickey on this point. 

Rev. Theodore Parker of Boston is at the Briggs House, & wishes 
very much to see you. 

Yours truly, 

Horace White, Assist. Sec, etc. 

If you wish one or two of those rifles, please call at our office 
between ^ & S this afternoon, or between 7 & 8 this evening. 

W. 

It is the testimony of Salmon Brown that his father did 
turn back and return to Tabor in the wake of the Root train. 
This had a special interest for him, because with it went his 
two sons Salmon and Watson, who had received, when digging 
potatoes at North Elba, the news of the battle of Osawatomie, 
and of a speech by Martin White boasting of his having killed 
Frederick Brown. The next morning they were on their way 
back to Kansas for the avowed purpose of killing White, 
Salmon going to the Territory for the second time, Watson 
for the first.'' Assisted by Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass 
and other friends (to whom naturally they did not reveal their 



270 JOHN BROWN 

exact errand), they reached Chicago, where Mr. White gave 
them each a Sharp's rifle, and then joined Dr. Root's party. 
With it they unwittingly passed their father in Iowa, as he 
was bound to Chicago. At St. Charles, Iowa, Watson wrote on 
October 30 to North Elba that the train travelled very slowly, 
and that he had heard a report that his father had gone East.^ 
John Brown, on learning in Chicago of their whereabouts, at 
once communicated with his son Owen, who had remained at 
Tabor, urging him to stop the younger sons there until he could 
arrive. Owen delivered the message, and Watson awaited his 
father's arrival, Salmon pushing on to carry out his plan. 
When he reached Topeka, he heard and credited a false story 
of Martin White's death, and returned to his Uncle Jeremiah 
Brown's at Hudson, Ohio, by the aid of a cavalry horse bought 
from the hanger-on of a camp of the natural enemies of the 
Brown family, — some regular cavalry, — without, however, 
a perfect title to the mount. 

At Tabor, Dr. Root's train deposited its arms and gave up 
the attempt to enter Kansas. Curiously enough, there were 
in its wagons the two hundred rifles which John Brown and 
his men subsequently took to Harper's Ferry. The Rev. John 
Todd's cellar was filled with boxes of clothing, ammunition, 
these two hundred rifles, sabres and a brass cannon, for the 
whole of that winter of 1856-57. With his son Watson, John 
Brown soon left Tabor. They "rode and tied across Iowa on 
a big mule and got to Ohio two weeks after I did," writes 
Salmon Brown, whose cavalry steed had carried him eastward 
in phenomenally short time. John Brown stopped again in 
Chicago, early in December, arriving in Ohio after an absence 
of over fifteen months.* He was not content, however, to lin- 
ger with his relatives in Hudson; he pushed on to Albany, 
Rochester and Peterboro. 

* It was probably at this time that John Brown, visiting his half-sister, Mrs. 
S. C. Davis, in Grafton, Ohio, made a characteristic reply to Mrs. Davis's ques- 
tion: "John, is n't it dreadful that Fremont should have been defeated and such 
a man as Buchanan put into office!" 

"Well, truly," answered Brown, "as I look at it now, I see that it was the right 
thing. If Fremont had been elected, the people would have settled right down 
and made no further effort. Now they know they must work if they want to save 
a free State." — Statement of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich., November 
24, 1909, to K. Mayo. 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 271 

But his overweening desire to obtain men, weapons and 
supplies for Kansas left him no time for his Adirondack home. 
Just after the New Year he arrived in Boston, and there began 
a series of friendships which became of the greatest value 
to him during the remainder of his life. Here he met for the 
first time Frank B. Sanborn, ever afterward his most ardent 
Massachusetts friend and defender, who was then acting as 
a secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. 
Sanborn, then but a year and a half out of Harvard, was 
on fire for the anti-slavery cause, and ready to worship any 
of its militant leaders. John Brown, fresh from the Kansas 
battlefields, made a deep impression upon this young Con- 
cord school-master, who had turned over his scholars to a 
Harvard student while he worked for Kansas. On January 5, 
Sanborn thus recorded his first impressions of his life's hero to 
Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the fighting young Uni- 
tarian parson of Worcester: 

'"Old Brown' of Kansas is now in Boston, with one of his sons, 
working for an object in which you will heartily sympathize — 
raising and arming a company of men for the future protection of 
Kansas. He wishes to raise $30,000 to arm and equip a company 
such as he thinks he can raise this present winter, but he will, as 
I understand him, take what money he can raise and use it as far 
as it will go. Can you not come to Boston tomorrow or next day 
and see Capt. Brown? If not, please indicate when you will be in 
Worcester, so he can see you. I like the man from what I have seen 
— and his deeds ought to bear witness for him."® 

To Mr. Sanborn, John Brown brought a personal letter 
of introduction from a relative in Springfield, Massachu- 
setts, and a general one from Governor Salmon P. Chase, of 
Ohio, based on Charles Robinson's letter of commendation, 
and dated December 20, 1856.* At once Mr. Sanborn took 
him to Dr. Samuel G. Howe and Theodore Parker. Patrick 
Tracy Jackson, the treasurer of the Massachusetts State 
Kansas Committee, George L. Stearns, Amos A. Lawrence, 
Dr. Samuel Cabot, Jr., Judge Thomas Russell, Wendell 
Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison were some of the other 
friends Brown made. Mr. Garrison he met one Sunday 
evening in January at Theodore Parker's. They were at oppo- 

* Governor Chase gave Brown twenty-five dollars on this occasion. 



272 JOHN BROWN 

site poles of thought in their methods of deahng with slavery. 
Mr. Garrison, a non-resistant, could conceive no situation in 
which it was right to take up arms, — "carnal weapons," as 
he often called them, — while Brown was all impatience with 
men who only talked and would not shoot. The debate lasted 
until late in the evening. Mr. Garrison, it has been recorded, 

"saw in the famous Kansas chieftain a tall, spare, farmer-like man, 
with head disproportionately small, and that inflexible mouth which 
as yet no beard concealed. They discussed peace and nonresist- 
ance together, Brown quoting the Old Testament against Gar- 
rison's citations from the New, and Parker from time to time in- 
jecting a bit of Lexington into the controversy, which attracted 
a small group of interested listeners."^ 

Mr. Parker soon became one of five men who grouped 
themselves as an informal committee to aid Brown in what- 
ever attacks he might make on slavery, though Mr. Parker 
was not certain that Brown's general plan for attacking the 
hated institution would be successful. "I doubt," he said, 
"whether things of this kind will succeed. But we shall make 
a great many failures before we discover the right way of get- 
ting at it. This may as well be one of them." * When the final 
blow was struck, no one wrote more vigorously in Brown's 
support than did Theodore Parker. 

George Luther Stearns, a successful merchant of Boston 
and an exceptionally public-spirited man, became, as he him- 
self put it, "strongly impressed" with Brown's "sagacity, 
courage, and strong integrity," and thereafter practically put 
his purse at Brown's disposal.^ He and Gerrit Smith gave to 
him more liberally than any one else, as will hereafter appear, 
and their homes were always open to him. It was on Sunday, 
January ii, 1857, that Brown first entered the hospitable 
Stearns mansion, entertaining the family at table with an 
account of Black Jack, grimly humorous, i" To Mr. Stearns 
he gave his views of the Kansas chieftains, Pomeroy, Robin- 
son, etc., exalting Martin F. Conway as the best of the politi- 
cal leaders, but characterizing him as lacking in force. The 
memory of that dinner is still kept green in the Stearns 
family; its immediate effect was a determination on Mr. 
Stearns's part to do everything in his power to get Brown the 
arms and money he desired. 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 273 

Amos A. Lawrence, who had known Brown when he was 
in Springfield in the wool business, records in his diary on 
January 7: "Captain Brown, the old partisan hero of Kan- 
sas warfare, came to see me. I had a long talk with him. He is 
a calm, temperate and pious man, but when roused he is a 
dreadful foe. He appears about sixty years old." ^^ In view 
of Mr. Lawrence's complete change of opinion in regard to 
Brown in later years, it is interesting to note that he about this 
time characterized Brown as the "Miles Standish of Kansas." 

"His severe simplicity of habits," Mr. Lawrence continued, "his 
determined energy, his heroic courage in the time of trial, all based 
on a deep religious faith, make him a true representative of the 
Puritanic warrior. I knew him before he went to Kansas and have 
known more of him since, and should esteem the loss of his service, 
from poverty, or any other cause, almost irreparable."^" 

This opinion Mr. Lawrence was also willing to back with his 
money. He offered to be 

"one of ten, or a smaller number, to pay a thousand dollars per 
annum till the admission of Kansas into the Union, for the purpose 
of supporting John Brown's family and keeping the proposed com- 
pany in the field." 

This record of the impression made by John Brown upon 
those whom he met about this time would not be complete 
without a quotation from Henry D. Thoreau, in whose house 
at Concord Brown saw, in March, Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
It was eminently characteristic of the strength of Brown's 
personality, and of the vigor of his mentality, that he should 
have made both of these men his devoted adherents. Like 
Theodore Parker's, their support of him became of enormous 
value in 1859, in shaping the judgment of the time upon John 
Brown. In his eloquent 'Plea for Captain John Brown,' 
Thoreau thus describes Brown as he found him in 1857: ^^ 

"A man of rare common-sense and directness of speech, as of ac- 
tion; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles, — 
that was what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or tran- 
sient impulse, but carrying out the purpose of a life. I noticed that 
he did not overstate anything, but spoke within bounds. I remem- 
ber, particularly, how, in his speech here, he referred to what his 
family had suffered in Kansas, without ever giving the least vent to 



274 JOHN BROWN 

his pent-up' fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue. 
Also, referring to the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, he said, 
rapidly paring away his speech, like an experienced soldier, keep- 
ing a reserve of force and meaning, 'They had a perfect right to 
be hung.' He was not in the least a rhetorician, was not talking to 
Buncombe or his constituents anywhere, had no need to invent 
anything, but to tell the simple truth, and communicate his own 
resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and elo- 
quence in Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It 
was like the speeches of Cromwell compared with those of an ordi- 
nary king." 

It must not be forgotten, in this connection, that very little 
was known in Boston at this time about the Pottawatomie 
murders, and still less about John Brown's connection with 
them. Frank Preston Stearns, the biographer of his father, 
states that the latter never knew of John Brown's connection 
with the crime, 1* and it may well be that Theodore Parker 
and others passed off the scene without a full realization of 
the connection between the Harper's Ferry leader and the 
tragedy of May 24, 1856. To none of these new-found friends 
did Brown at this period communicate his Virginia plan. 
He kept it to himself a year longer; but he did not conceal 
from some of them his desire to defend Kansas by raiding 
in Missouri, or by attacking slavery at some other vulnerable 
point. With the general idea they were, like Theodore Parker, 
in accord, but not sufficiently interested to ask for details, so 
abounding was the faith in himself which the mere appear- 
ance of the man created. 

John Brown's first practical encouragement came on 
January 7, when the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, 
of which Stearns was chairman, voluntarily voted to give 
him the two hundred Sharp's rifles, together with four thou- 
sand ball cartridges and thirty-one thousand percussion caps, 
then in the Rev. John Todd's cellar at Tabor. ^^ These arms 
Brown was glad to obtain, because of their nearness to the 
scene of action ; he was to take possession of them as the 
agent of the committee, and, more than that, was authorized 
to draw on the treasurer, Mr. P. T. Jackson, for not less 
than five hundred dollars for expenses. The only conditions 
were that these rifles were to be held subject to the order 
of the committee, and tliat Brown was to report from time 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 275 

to time the condition of the property and the disposition 
made of it, "so far as it is proper to do so." Subsequently 
(April 15, 1857), Brown was authorized to sell one hundred 
of these rifles to Free State settlers in Kansas for not less 
than fifteen dollars each, and to apply the proceeds to relieve 
the suffering inhabitants of the Territory. ^^ These weapons, 
originally purchased by Dr. Cabot, under instructions voted 
on September 10, were first intended to be "loaned to actual 
settlers for defence against unlawful aggressions upon their 
rights and liberties." ^^ Afterwards, there arose a misunder- 
standing as to the ownership of these arms between the State 
Committee, the National Committee and the Central Com- 
mittee for Kansas at Lawrence, which was finally straightened 
out by the National Committee's relinquishment of all claim 
to the rifles, just as the Massachusetts Committee was about 
to proceed legally for their recovery. 

It was at the Astor House in New York that the National 
Kansas Committee met on Saturday, January 24, for the ses- 
sion at which the rifles were returned to the original donors. 
John Brown applied for them, but, as Horace White sub- 
sequently testified, there was a good deal of opposition to 
the policy of granting him arms.^^ Twelve boxes of selected 
clothing, sufficient for sixty persons, were given to him, but 
the question of the rifles was settled by transferring them to 
the Massachusetts Committee, on motion of Mr. Sanborn. 
A resolution appropriating five thousand dollars for John 
Brown was violently opposed by those who were against giv- 
ing him the rifles; they felt that he was too radical and violent 
to be trusted with such a sum, and that he would, if given it, 
disburse it in ways the Committee might not sanction.*^ The 
Secretary of the National Committee, H. B. Hurd, recorded in 
i860 that he asked Brown before the Committee: " If you get 
the arms and money you desire, will you invade Missouri or 
any slave territory?" To which he [Brown] replied: 

"I am no adventurer. You all know me. You are acquainted 
with my history. You know what I have done in Kansas. I do not 
expose my plans. No one knows them but myself, except perhaps 
one. I will not be interrogated ; if you wish to give me anything I 
want you to give it freely. I have no other purpose but to serve 
the cause of liberty."^** 



276 JOHN BROWN 

While the reply was not satisfactory so far as the rifles in 
question were concerned, the Committee did vote five thou- 
sand dollars "in aid of Capt. John Brown in any defensive 
measures that may become necessary." He was authorized 
to draw five hundred dollars whenever he wished it, but it is 
interesting to note that he never obtained more than one 
hundred and fifty dollars, and that not until the summer of 
1857, the Committee having no more to give. How this 
failure rankled in Brown's mind appears in his letter of April 
3, 1857, to William Barnes, of Albany, who yet preserves the 
original: ''I am prepared to expect nothing but bad faith from 
the National Kansas Committee at Chicago, as I will show 
you hereafter. This is for the present confidential^ In notify- 
ing Brown officially, after the action of the Committee, Mr. 
Hurd stated that "such arms and supplies as the Committee 
may have and which may be needed by Capt. Brown" were 
appropriated to his use, "provided that the arms & supplies 
be not more than enough for one hundred men." 21 But this 
obviously did not apply to the rifles previously returned to 
Massachusetts. Under this provision, twenty-five Colt's navy 
revolvers were subsequently sent to Brown at Lawrence 
through Mr. W. F. M. Arny, agent of the Committee, but 
they never reached Brown himself. As he did not appear to 
claim them, they were loaned to the Stubbs military company. 
John Brown, in explanation of his attitude, told Horace White 
that he "had had so much trouble and fuss and difficulty with 
the people of Lawrence, that he would never go there again 
to claim anything." 22 

Immediately after the adjournment of the National Com- 
mittee, Brown placed in Horace White's hands a substantial 
list of articles he needed for the equipment of fifty volunteers, 
and the cost thereof delivered in Lawrence or Topeka.^^* 
Jonas Jones, of Tabor, who was in official charge of the Free 
State supplies there, was ordered to retain everything in his 
hands until John Brown had made his choice. By February 18, 
Mr. White wrote that the articles Brown had requisitioned 
would be shipped the following week, and on March 21 he 
notified Brown that he would shortly go to Kansas and work 
there to fit Brown out with all the supplies he was entitled to 

* See Appendix for this requisition. 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 2-]^ 

under the New York resolution i^^ while in the same month, 
W. F. M. Arny wrote that he had packed and sent to Jonas 
Jones fourteen boxes of clothing for Brown's use." While 
his interests were thus considerately being cared for, after the 
New York meeting, Brown again went to Peterboro, by way 
of Vergennes, Vermont and Rochester, to visit Gerrit Smith, 
who, although contributing a thousand dollars a month to the 
National Kansas Committee, was quite ready to help Brown 
from time to time, and never kept account of the sums he gave 
to the Kansas fighter. From Peterboro, Brown made, with 
John Brown, Jr., a flying trip to his wife and family at North 
Elba, whom he had not seen for a year and a half.^s But he 
was in Boston again on February i6, where he wrote to 
Augustus Wattles, asking for the latest Kansas news and for 
Wattles's honest conviction in regard to Governor Geary. -^ 
Indeed, from now on until he finally went to Tabor, en route 
to Kansas, the story of his movements is one of incessant 
and restless wandering throughout New England and New 
York. 

On the 1 8th of February he made what was his most nota- 
ble public appearance in New England — before the Joint 
Committee on Federal Relations of the Massachusetts Legis- 
lature. The friends of Kansas w^ere urging upon the Legisla- 
ture an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars, on the 
ground that, as Mr. Sanborn assured the Legislature, "the 
rights and interests of Massachusetts have suffered gross out- 
rage in Kansas." No labored argument seemed to him neces- 
sary, but there were witnesses to testify to what had occurred 
in Kansas, among them E. B. Whitman, Martin F. Conway 
and John Brown. Whitman and Brown were introduced as 
having the best blood of the Mayflower in their veins and being 
descendants of soldiers of the Revolution. Brown's lengthy 
speech was, in substance, a story of his own experiences 
(Pottawatomie omitted) and a review of the Border Rufiian 
outrages upon individuals and towns, without mentioning any 
of the Free State reprisals. In it he paid a tribute to Ottawa 
Jones and his wife for their care of himself and his sons. 

"I," he said, "with Five sick, & wounded sons, & son in law; were 
obliged for some time to lie on the ground without shelter, our 
Boots & clothes worn out, destitute of money, & at times almost 



278 JOHN BROWN 

in a state of starvation; & dependent on the charities of the Chris- 
tian Indian, & his wife whom I before named." 

In the manuscript of this address, still preserved in the 
Kansas Historical Society, there is the following conclusion : 

"It cost the U S more than half a Million for a year past to 
harrass poor Free State settlers, in Kansas, & to violate all Law, 
& all right, Moral, & Constitutional, for the sole &f only purpose, of 
forceing Slavery uppon that Territory. I chalenge this whole nation 
to prove before God or mankind to contrary. Who paid this money 
to enslave the settlers of Kansas; & worry them out? I say nothing 
in this estimate of the money wasted by Congress in the manage- 
ment of this horribly tyranical, & Damnable affair." 

In answer to the chairman's question as to what sort of emi- 
grants Kansas needed, Brown replied: "We want good men, 
industrious men, men who respect themselves; who act only 
from the dictates of conscience ; men who fear God too much 
to fear anything human," — an interesting statement in 
view of the omission of all reference to slavery. ^^ 

Despite Brown's emphatic words and the moving story of 
his own sufferings, the Massachusetts Legislature decided not 
to vote anything for the Kansas cause, and so Brown turned 
again to raising the money he needed for his ow^n company. 
Besides his trip to Concord, with his two nights in the Thoreau 
and Emerson homes, he visited, in March, Canton, Collinsville, 
Hartford and New Haven, in Connecticut, and was several 
times at the Massasoit House in Springfield, where he was a 
particularly welcome visitor by reason of the interest in him 
of its proprietors, the Messrs. Chapin, who had notified him 
in the previous September of their readiness to send him fifty 
or one hundred dollars "as a testimonial of their admiration 
of your brave conduct during the war." ^9 At New Haven, on 
March i8, he received a promise of one thousand dollars. In 
and about Hartford six hundred dollars were raised for him; 
and from Springfield, Brown was able to send four hundred 
dollars to William H. D. Callender, of Hartford, who for some 
time acted as his agent and treasurer. ^^ At Canton, where 
both his father and mother had grown up, Brown was gratified 
by a promise to send to his family at North Elba, "Grand- 
Father John Brown's old Granite Monument, about So years 
old ; to be faced and Inscribed in memory of our poor Fredk 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 279 

who sleeps in Kansas," — which stone marks to-day Brown's 
own grave. ^^ He also received in Canton and Collinsville the 
sum of eighty dollars, after lecturing for three evenings on 
Kansas affairs. About this time he obtained seventy dollars 
sent through Amos A. Lawrence, as he did one hundred dol- 
lars in April contributed by a friend of Mr, Stearns through 
that generous patron. ^^ xhe five hundred dollars voted to him 
by the Massachusetts Kansas State Committee on January 7, 
and a second five hundred voted on April 11, Brown did not 
obtain until the 19th or 20th of April, when, at Mr. G. L. 
Stearns's suggestion, he drew upon the Committee through 
Henry Sterns, of Springfield.^^ To aid him in his quest. Brown 
wrote and published in the Tribune and other newspapers the 
following appeal for aid : 

TO THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM 

The undersigned, whose individual means were exceedingly limited 
when he first engaged in the struggle for Liberty in Kansas, being 
now still more destitute and no less anxious than in time past to 
continue his efforts to sustain that cause, is induced to make this 
earnest appeal to the friends of Freedom throughout the United 
States, in the firm belief that his call will not go unheeded. I ask 
all honest lovers of Liberty and Human Rights, both male and female, 
to hold up my hands by contributions of pecuniary aid, either as 
counties, cities, towns, villages, societies, churches or individuals. 

I will endeavor to make a judicious and faithful application of all 
such means as I may be supplied with. Contributions may be sent 
in drafts to W. H. D. Callender, Cashier State Bank, Hartford, Ct. 
It is my intention to visit as many places as I can during my stay 
in the States, provided I am first informed of the disposition of the 
inhabitants to aid me in my efforts, as well as to receive my visit. 
Information may be communicated to me (care Massasoit House) 
at Springfield, Mass. Will editors of newspapers friendly to the 
cause kindly second the measure, and also give this some half dozen 
insertions? Will either gentlemen or ladies, or both, who love the 
cause, volunteer to take up the business? It is with no little sacrifice 
of personal feel i?ig that I appear in this manner before the public. 

John Brown.''* 

On March 19, while in New Haven, John Brown thus 
turned to Amos A. Lawrence for aid in his private affairs: 

The offer you so kindly made through the Telegraph some time 
since emboldens me to propose the following for your consideration. 



28o JOHN BROWN 

For One Thousand Dollars cash I am offered an improved piece 
of land which with a little improvement I now have might enable 
my family consisting of a Wife & Five minor children (the youngest 
not yet Three years old) to procure a Subsistence should I never 
return to them; my Wife being a good economist, & a real old fash- 
ioned business woman. She has gone through the Two past winters 
in our open cold house: unfinished outside; & not plastered. I have 
no other income or means for their support. I have never hinted 
to anyone else that I had a thought of asking for any help to provide 
in any such way for my family; & should not to you: but for your 
own suggestion. I fully believe I shall get the help I need to op- 
perate with West. Last Night a private meeting of some gentlemen 
here; voted to raise me One Thousand Dollars in New Haven, for 
that purpose. If you feel at all inclined to encourage me in the mea- 
sure I have proposed I shall be grateful to get a line from you ; Care 
of Massasoit House, Springfield, Mass; & will call when I come 
again to Boston. I do not feel disposed to weary you with my oft 
repeated visitations. I believe I am indebted to you as the unknown 
giver of One Share of Emigrant aid stock; as I can think of no other 
so likely to have done it. Is my appeal right ? 

Very Respectfully Your Friend 

John Brown.^^ 

Mr. Lawrence at once replied that he had just sent four- 
teen thousand dollars to Kansas to found the best possible 
school system, and therefore was short of cash. 

"But," he added, "in case anything should occur while you are 
in a great and good cause to shorten your life, you may be assured 
that your wife and children shall be cared for more liberally than 
you now propose. The family of Captain Brown of Osawatomie 
will not be turned out to starve in this country, untill Liberty her- 
self is driven out."^*^ 

Later, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Stearns both agreed to this 
proposal, but this thousand dollars was as slow to appear as 
that promised at New Haven. It was, however, finally raised 
(unlike the New Haven sum) and applied to the purchase of 
the land. The list of contributors to this fund and their gifts 
runs as follows: 

Wm. R. Lawrence, Boston $50 

Amos A. Lawrence, " 310 

Geo. L. Stearns, " 260 

John E. Lodge, " 25 

J. Carter Brown, Providence, R. 1 100 

J. M, S. WiUiams, Boston 50 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 281 

W. D. Pickman, Salem 50 

R. P. Wiiters, " ^ 10 

S. E. Peabody, " 10 

John H. Silsbee, " lO 

B. H. Silsbee, " 5 

Cash, 10 

Wendell Phillips, Boston 25 

W. I. Rotch, New Bedford 10 

John Bertram, Salem 75 



$1000 



37 



This was not brought together until Brown had found it 
necessary to write, on May 13, the day he left for the West: 
" I must ask to have the $1000 made up at once; & forwarded 
to Gerrit Smith. / did not start the mieasure of getting up 
any subscription for me; (although I was sufficiently needy 
as God knows) ; nor had I thought oi further burdening either 
oi my desiV iv'iQnds Stearns, or Lawrence. . . ." ^^ The reason 
for this urgency was that he had committed himself for the 
purchase of the land to the brothers Thompson. Even then 
the transaction dragged on until late in August, when Mr. 
Sanborn visited North Elba and put It through. ■''^ 

From the 21st to the 26th of March, except for a hasty trip 
to Springfield, Brown was in Worcester, part of the time as 
a guest of Eli Thayer. On the 23d he spoke at an anti-slavery 
meeting, and on the 25th he lectured in the City Hall, on 
Kansas. On these and other occasions he relied largely upon 
the address he had given before the Committee of the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature, to which he had appended the following 
statement of his own plans when In Connecticut :^° 

"I am trying to raise from $20, to 25,000 Dollars in the Free 
States to enable me to continue my efforts in the cause of Freedom. 
Will the people of Connecticut my native State afford me some aid 
in this undertaking? ... I was told that the newspapers in a cer- 
tain City were dressed in mourning on hearing that I was killed & 
scalped in Kansas. . . . Much good it did me. In the same place 
I met a more cool reception than in any other place where I have 
stoped. If my friends will hold up my hands while I live: I will 
freely absolve them from any expence over me when I am dead. ..." 

Dr. Francis Wayland, who heard him at Worcester, was 
not inspired by his oratorical powers. "It Is one of the cu- 



282 JOHN BROWN 

rious facts," he wrote, "that many men who do it are utterly 
unable to tell about it. John Brown, a flame of fire in action, 
was dull in speech." ^^ Emerson, on the other hand, in re- 
cording in his diary Brown's speech at Concord, said he gave, 

"a good account of himself in the Town Hall last night to a meet- 
ing of citizens. One of his good points was the folly of the peace 
party in Kansas, who believed that their strength lay in the great- 
ness of their wrongs, and so discountenanced resistance. He wished 
to know if their wrong was greater than the negro's, and what 
kind of strength that gave to the negro." ^^ 

Later, Emerson wrote this tribute to Brown's powers as a 
speaker: 

"For himself, he is so transparent that all men see him through. 
He is a man to make friends wherever on earth courage and integ- 
rity are esteemed, the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with no by- 
ends of his own. Many of you have seen him, and everyone who has 
heard him speak has been impressed alike by his simple, artless 
goodness joined with his sublime courage."" 

The financial results of the Worcester meetings were slim. 
But Eli Thayer gave him five hundred dollars' worth of 
weapons — a cannon and a rifle — while Ethan Allen and 
Company also contributed a rifle. ^^ March ended for Brown 
with a flying trip to Easton, Pennsylvania, in company with 
Frank Sanborn and Alartin Conway, as representatives of 
the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, in a fruitless efTort to 
induce ex-Governor Reeder to return to Kansas and assume 
the leadership of the Free State party. "^ But Mr. Reeder 
was too happily situated at Easton ; he was, however, so heart- 
ily in sympathy with Brown's plan that the latter wrote 
to him for aid on his return to Springfield, explaining that 
the only difference between them was as to the number of 
men needed, and hoping that Mr. Reeder would soon dis- 
cern the necessity of "going out to Kansas this spring." ^^ It 
was on this visit to the Massasoit House that Brown found 
a letter from his wife telling him of his sons' decision to fight 
no more. To this he replied on March 31 : 

"I have only to say as regards the resolution of the boys to ' learn 
and practice war no more,' that it was not at my solicitation that 
they engaged in it at the first — that while I may perhaps feel no 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 283 

more love of the business than they do, still I think there may 
be possibly in their day that which is more to be dreaded, if such 
things do not now exist."'*'' 

His financial progress to the end of March by no means 
satisfied Brown. On the 3d of April he wrote thus despond- 
ently to William Barnes, of Albany: 

"I expect soon to return West; & to go back without securing 
even an outfit. I go with a sad heart having failed to secure even 
the means of equiping; to say nothing of feeding men. I had when 
I returned no more that I could peril ; & could make no further sac- 
rifice, except to go about in the attitude of a beggar: & that I have 
done, humiliating as it is," 

The winter was slipping away rapidly; spring was at hand. 
He was impatient to return to Kansas, and his benefac- 
tors expected him to be there in the spring in time for any 
fresh aggression by the Border Ruffians. But his travelling 
expenses were not light, and there were two matters that 
rapidly reduced his cash resources, especially during the 
month of April. On the occasion of Brown's first visit to 
Collinsville, about the beginning of March, he met, among 
others, Charles Blair, a blacksmith and forge-master, who 
attended Brown's lecture on Kansas and heard his appeal 
for funds. The next morning he saw Brown in the village 
drug-store, where, to a group of interested citizens, the Cap- 
tain was exhibiting some weapons which were part of the 
property taken from Pate and not returned to him. Mr. 
Blair testified in 1859: ^^ 

"Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight 
inches long, and he [Brown] remarked that if he had a lot of those 
things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a cap- 
ital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas to keep in their log 
cabins to defend themselves against any sudden attack that might 
be made on them. He turned to me, knowing, I suppose, that I was 
engaged in edge-tool making, and asked me what I would make 
them for; what it would cost to make five hundred or one thousand 
of those things, as he described them. I replied, without much con- 
sideration, that I would make him five hundred of them for a dollar 
and a quarter apiece; or if he wanted a thousand of them, I thought 
they might be made for a dollar apiece. I did not wish to commit 
myself then and there without further investigation. ... He sim- 



284 JOHN BROWN ' . 

ply remarked that he would want them made. I thought no more 
about it until a few days afterwards. . . . The result was that I 
made a contract with him." 

This document was not signed until March 30, ten days 
after Blair had shipped one dozen spears as samples to the 
Massasoit House. This was the genesis of the Harper's Ferry 
pikes, for the weapons Brown contracted for were never 
delivered until 1859, — long after any Kansas need for them 
had disappeared. 

The reason for this delay is not to be explained, as some 
have thought, by the theory that Brown from the first in- 
tended to use the spears elsewhere than In Kansas. There 
is evidence, besides his statements and letters to Blair, that 
he really thought these weapons would be of value even to 
the Free State women of the embattled Territory. Un- 
doubtedly, Brown looked forward to a further attack upon 
slavery after the Kansas battle was won. The fate of Kansas 
appealed to him only in so far as it involved an aggressive 
attack upon slavery. He did not, so Mr. Sanborn testifies, 
reveal his Virginia plans, which were always in the back of 
his head, to any of his new Massachusetts friends until 1858. 
But iiKview of his long-cherished scheme for a direct assault 
upon slavery, and his confidences at this time to Hugh Forbes, 
there can be no question that, in asking for far more arms 
than could be used by a hundred or even two hundred men, 
his mind was fixed upon further use for them after the Bor- 
der Rufifians had ceased from troubling. Kansas was to be 
a prologue to the real drama; the properties of the one were 
to serve in the other. Had Brown obtained the money he 
needed to pay for the pikes, he would surely have received 
them in July, 1857, on the 1st of which the delivery was to 
be made. But Brown w^as not able to make the first payment 
of five hundred dollars within ten days, as required by the 
contract. Instead, he sent only three hundred and fifty dol- 
lars, and did not make his next payment of two hundred 
dollars until April 25. 

Blair was a canny Yankee. While he bought all the mate- 
rial needed — the handles were of ash and the spearheads 
strong malleable Iron, two inches wide and about eight Inches 
long, with a screw and ferrules to connect the blade to the 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 285 

handle or shank — and did some work on the contract, he 
stopped when he had clone enough work to have earned the 
five hundred and fifty dollars. The handles were laid aside 
in bundles to season, and the iron work carefully preserved 
until such time as Brown should give further orders and sup- 
ply additional funds. It was not until he received a letter 
dated February 10, 1858, that Blair again heard from his 
Kansas friend, and, with the exception of another letter, 
written on March 11, 1858, nothing further happened until 
Brown unexpectedly appeared at Blair's door on June 3, 
1859, and took the necessary steps to have the pikes com- 
pleted without loss of time. Then, certainly, it was Brown's 
idea to place these weapons in the hands of slaves, in order 
that, unaccustomed as they were to firearms, they might 
with them fight their way to liberty. 

Brown's second investment at this period cost him still 
more money than the pikes, and resulted in little or no benefit 
and some very considerable injury to his long-cherished plan 
of carrying the "war into Africa," of making the institu- 
tion of slavery insecure by a direct attack upon it. On one 
of his trips to New York he met, late in March, through 
the Rev. Joshua Leavitt, of the New York Independent, one 
Hugh Forbes, a suave adventurer of considerable ability, who 
habitually called himself colonel, because of military service 
in Italy under Garibaldi, in the unsuccessful revolution of 
1848-49.^^ Forbes was typical of the human flotsam and 
jetsam washed up by every revolutionary movement. A 
silk merchant for a time in Sienna, he was perpetually needy 
after his arrival in New York, about 1855, living by his tal- 
ents as a teacher of fencing, and by doing odd jobs on the 
Tribune as translator or reporter. About forty-five years 
of age, he was a good linguist and had acquired in Italy 
some knowledge of military campaigning, — quite enough to 
impress John Brown, who believed he had found in Forbes 
precisely the expert lieutenant he needed, not only for the 
coming Kansas undertaking, but for the more distant raid 
upon Virginia. Vain, obstinate, unstable and greatly lacking 
funds, as Forbes was. Brown's projects appealed mightily 
to him; he speedily saw himself in fancy the Garibaldi of 
a revolution against slavery. John Brown, the reticent and 



286 JOHN BROWN 

self-contained, unbosomed himself to this man as he had 
not to the Massachusetts friends who were advancing the 
money upon which he lived and plotted. The result was 
Forbes's engagement as instructor, at one hundred dollars 
a month, of the proposed "volunteer-regular" company, to 
operate first in Kansas and later in Virginia, into which 
undertaking Forbes entered the more willingly as he learned 
of the wealthy New England men who were backing Brown. 

For Brown this was an unhappy alliance; dissimilar in 
character, training and antecedents, and alike only in their 
insistence on leadership, mutual disappointment and dissat- 
isfaction were the only possible outcome of the association 
of the two men. Forbes, as will be seen later, became the 
evil genius of the Brown enterprise. First of all, he absorbed 
money, when Brown had none too much for his own imme- 
diate needs and the first payments to Blair for the pikes. 
Forbes was authorized by Brown, early in April, to draw 
upon Mr. Callender, of Hartford, for six hundred dollars, 
and he did so within the month. But he showed so little 
inclination to follow Brown westward that the latter soon 
became suspicious. 

Forbes had several excuses for delaying. It had been 
agreed that he should translate and condense a foreign man- 
ual of guerrilla warfare; this he did under the title of 'Man- 
ual of the Patriotic Volunteer.' This work dragged inter- 
minably; on June i, Joseph Bryant, a New York friend of 
Brown's, who acted for him, reported, after a call on Forbes, 
that the latter was content with his progress and certain that 
he was losing no time. On June i6, Forbes assured Bryant 
that the book would be ready in ten days; that he was not 
ready to join Brown; indeed, he now had doubts whether 
any help would be needed in Kansas until winter. This 
report so alarmed Brown that on June 22 he sent to Forbes, 
through Bryant, a demand for the immediate repayment of 
the six hundred dollars, or as much of it as he might have 
drawn through Callender. Bryant at once took the order 
to Forbes, but becoming convinced that "the colonel" was 
acting in good faith, and that much of the money had al- 
ready been spent, did not show it to the budding author, 
who was now certain of finishing his book "in about a week." 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 287 

To that volume, however, Forbes had not devoted all his 
energies, for he had spent considerable time in endeavoring 
to raise more money with which to bring his family over 
from Paris, where they were eking out a precarious exist- 
ence. Of Brown's six hundred dollars the family had received 
one hundred and twenty dollars; sums amounting to seven 
hundred dollars Forbes obtained from Horace Greeley and 
other friends of Free Kansas, according to a statement of 
Mr. Greeley in the Tribune for October 24, 1859. What 
became of these funds is not known, but by June 25 Forbes 
had given up his idea of bringing his family over, and had 
decided to send to Paris the daughter who was in New York, 
that she might be with her mother. Finally, Forbes drifted 
westward, arriving at Tabor on August 9, two days after 
Brown's appearance at the same place. He had stopped at 
Gerrit Smith's at Peterboro on his way out, and success- 
fully appealed to the purse of that ever generous man, who 
had "helped" John Brown to a "considerable sum" ($350) 
when they parted in Chicago on June 22. Nevertheless, 
Forbes obtained one hundred and fifty dollars, of which he 
sent all but twenty dollars back to New York toward the 
cost of printing his book. Gerrit Smith "trusted," so he 
wrote to Thaddeus Hyatt, that Forbes would "prove very 
useful to our sacred work in Kansas." "We must," he added, 
"not shrink from fighting for Liberty — & if Federal troops 
fight against her, we must fight against them." ^^ 

Aside from his negotiations with Forbes, and with Mr. 
Blair for the pikes, April was for Brown another month of 
active solicitation of funds, but with even more disappoint- 
ing results, complicated by the news, received from his son 
Jason, that a deputy United States marshal had passed 
through Cleveland, bound East to arrest him for some of his 
Kansas transactions.^^ He wrote on the 1 6th, from Spring- 
field, to Eli Thayer that: 

"One of U S Hounds is on my track;" & I have kept myself hid 
for a few days to let my track get cold. I have no idea of being 
taken; & intend {if ^God will';) to go back with Irons in rather than 
uppon my hands. ... I got a fine lift in Boston the other day; 
& hope Worcester will not be entirely behind. 1 do not mean you; 
or Mr. Allen, & Co." " 



288 JOHN BROWN 

This keeping himself hid had reference to his stay with 
Judge and Mrs. Russell in Boston for a week, during which 
time Mrs. Russell allowed no one but herself to open the 
front door, lest the "US Hounds " appear. The Russell house 
was chosen because it was in a retired street, and Judge 
Russell himself was never conspicuous in the Abolitionist 
ranks, in order that he might be the more serviceable to 
the cause in quiet ways. Mrs. Russell remembers to this 
day Brown's sense of humor and his keen appreciation of 
the negro use of long words and their grandiloquence. She 
recalls, too, that he frequently barricaded his bedroom, told 
her of his determination not to be taken alive, and added, 
"I should hate to spoil your carpet."^^ 

It was while staying with the Russells that he came down- 
stairs one day with a written document which voiced his 
bitter disappointment at his non-success in obtaining the 
funds he needed. He read it aloud, as follows: 

"Old Browns Fareivell: to the Plymouth Rocks; Bunker Hill, 
Monuments; Charter Oaks; and Uncle Toms, Cabbins. 

"Has left for Kansas. Was trying since he came out of the ter- 
ritory to secure an outfit; or in other words the means of^ arming and 
equiping thoroughly; his regular minuet men: who are mixed up with 
the people of Kansas: and he leaves the States; with a deep feeling 
OF sadness: that after having exhausted his own small means: and 
with his family and his brave men: suffered hunger, nakedness, cold, 
sickness, (and some [of] them) imprisonment, with most barbarous, 
and cruel treatment: wounds, and death: that after lying on the 
ground for Months; in the most unwholesome <2wJ sickly; as well 
as uncomfortable places: with sick and wounded destitute of any 
shelter a part of the time; dependent {in part) on the care, and 
hospitality of the Indians: and hunted like Wolves: that after all 
this; in order to sustain a cause, which every Citizen of this ' Glorious 
Republic,' is under equal Moral obligation to do: (and for the neglect 
of which HE WILL be held accountable to god:) in which every Man, 
Woman, and Child of the entire human family ; has a deep and awful 
interest: that when no wages are asked, or expected: he canot secure 
(amidst all the wealth, luxury, and extravagance of this 'Heaven 
exalted' people;) even the necessary supplies, for a common soldier. 
' How ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN ? ' 

John Brown.^* 
"Boston, April, 1857." 

For one encouraging happening about this time, John 
Brown w^as again indebted to the generosity of Mr. Stearns. 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 289 

He had set his heart on receiving two hundred revolvers, in 
addition to the twenty-five donated by the National Kansas 
Committee, and through Mr. Thayer he had made inquiry 
as to the prices of several manufacturers. Finally, he received 
a low bid of thirteen hundred dollars for two hundred re- 
volvers from the Massachusetts Arms Company, through its 
agent, T. W. Carter, at Chicopee Falls, who stated that the 
low price — fifty per cent of the usual charge — was due 
solely to the company's generous purpose "of aiding in your 
project of protecting the free state settlers of Kansas and 
securing their rights to the institutions of free Americay ^^ 
John Brown at once reported this offer to Mr. Stearns, saying: 
"Now if Rev T Parker, & other good people of Boston, would 
make up that amount; I might at least be well armed.'" ^^ Mr. 
Stearns immediately notified Mr. Carter that he would pur- 
chase the revolvers and pay for them by his note at four 
months from date of delivery, as this would give him time to 
raise the money by subscription if he desired to. The company 
accepted the proposition, and shipped the revolvers on May 25 
to "J. B. care Dr. Jesse Bowen, Iowa City, Iowa," with the 
company's hope "that there may be no occasion for their ser- 
vice in securing rights which ought to be guaranteed by the 
principles of justice and equity." As if he had a little doubt 
about their ultimate use, Mr. Carter added: "We have no fear 
that they will be put to service in your hands for other pur- 
poses." In notifying Brown that his offer had been accepted, 
Mr. Stearns significantly remarked, "I think you ought to go 
to Kansas as soon as possible and give Robinson and the rest 
some Backbone." For himself , Mr. Stearns asked only that, 
If he paid for these revolvers, all the arms, ammunition, rifles, 
as well as the revolvers not used for the defence of Kansas, 
be held as pledged to him for the payment of the thirteen hun- 
dred dollars. The Massachusetts Kansas Committee by formal 
vote assented to this suggestion. 

By April 23, Brown's hopes of further aid had vanished. 
On that day he wrote to his family from New Haven, asking 
that they have "some of the friends" drive at once to West- 
port and Ellzabethtown to meet him." But he was In Spring- 
field on the 25th, and on the 28th, owing to an attack of fever 
and ague, he had only just reached Albany on his way to North 



290 JOHN BROWN 

Elba, where he remained about two weeks with his family, 
before leaving for Iowa by way of Vergennes, Vermont. From 
this place he wrote on May 13 to George L. Stearns, "I leave 
here for the West today," ^^ without the slightest idea that it 
would take him three months to reach the rendezvous in 
Tabor. He had not, however, during the months before his 
departure, lost his interest in Kansas or failed to keep in direct 
touch with the situation there. Augustus Wattles and James 
H. Holmes had corresponded with him, and to the former 
Brown had written, on April 8, the following letter, which not 
only records clearly the spirit in which he again set his face 
toward Kansas, but is of special interest because it appears 
to be the first one to which he signed the nom-de-plume 
"Nelson Hawkins," that later appears so frequently in his 
correspondence : 

Boston, Massachusetts April 8, 1857. 

My Dear Sir: Your favor of the 15th March, and that of friend 
H. of the 1 6th, I have just received. I cannot express my gratitude 
for them both. They give me just the kind of news I was most oj all 
things anxious to hear. / hless God that he has not left the free-State 
men of Kansas to pollute themselves by the foid and loathesome em- 
brace of the old rotten whore. I have been trembling all along lest 
they might back down from the high and holy ground they had taken. 
I say, in view of the wisdom, firmness, and patience of my friends 
and fellow-sufferers, (in the cause of humanity,) let God's name be 
eternally praised! I would most gladly give my hand to all whose 
" garments are not defiled ; " and I humbly trust that I shall soon 
again have opportunity to rejoice (or sufier further if need be) with 
you, in the strife between Heaven and Hell. I wish to send my most 
cordial and earnest salutation to every one of the chosen. My efforts 
this way have not been altogether fruitless. I wish you and friend 
H. both to accept this for the moment; may write soon again, and 
hope to hear from you both at Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa — 
Care of Jonas Jones, Esq. 

Your sincere friend, 

Nelson Hawkins.^^ 

Augustus Wattles, Esq. 

Lawrence, Kansas Territory. 

At least one member of Brown's family was disturbed at 
the father's return to Kansas. John Browm, Jr., wrote to him 
thus: "It seems as though if you return to Kansas this Spring 
I should never see you again. But I will not look on the dark 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 291 

side. You have gone safely through a thousand perils and 
hairbreadth escapes." ^° It was more than a mere undefined 
dread that worried the son. His views as to the political situa- 
tion in Kansas are set forth in this letter with noteworthy 
ability. The just announced return of James H. Lane to the 
Territory would give an opportunity to see if the United 
States authorities there were still bent on arresting the Free 
Soil leaders, and whether the Free Soilers would unresistingly 
submit to such a happening. He also felt that, in view of the 
renewed hostilities which he believed were at hand, it would 
be well for his father to delay his entrance into Kansas, and 
thus, 

"place it out of the power of Croakers to say that the 'peace' had 
been broken only in consequence of the advent there of such dis- 
turbers as 'Jim Lane' and 'Old Brown.' And further, when war 
begins, if the people there take the right ground, you could raise and 
take in with you a force which might in truth become a * liberating 
army,' when they most stood in need of help." 

John Brown, Jr., then admitted that he feared that the 
Kansans, for whom his father was ready to peril his life, would, 
out of their slavish regard for Federal authority, be ready to 
"hand you over to the tormentor." The extent to which he 
was in his father's confidence, and the way in which both their 
minds were working upon the great post-Kansas project, 
appears clearly from a question in this same letter: "Do you 
not intend to visit Canada before long? That school can be 
established there, if not elsewhere." 

However much he may have taken his son's warnings to 
heart, John Brown left for Kansas master of considerable sup- 
plies. On May 18, Mr. Stearns estimated that the contri- 
butions of arms, clothing, etc., of which Brown had entire 
control, were worth $13,000.^^ A careful count of the sums he 
is known to have received after January i shows that they 
aggregated $2363, exclusive of the $1000 raised by Lawrence 
and Stearns for the purchase of the North Elba land. Out of 
this sum had come travelling expenses, some provision for his 
family, the $550 paid for the pikes, and the $600 absorbed 
by Forbes. To it must be added the $350 given to him In 
Chicago on June 22 by Gerrit Smith. The total sum he raised 



292 JOHN BROWN 

was, of course, larger than this; he obtained, for instance, 
some small gifts in Chicago. One large credit he did not use. 
In his enthusiasm for the cause, his admiration of the man 
and his complete confidence in Brown's "courage, prudence 
and good judgment," Stearns gave his Kansas friend authority 
to draw upon him for $7000, as it was needed, to subsist the 
one hundred "volunteer-regulars," provided that it became 
necessary to call that number into active service in Kansas in 
1857.^2 xhis emergency not occurring. Brown returned the 
credit untouched. Mr. Stearns, be it noted, testified in 1859 
that, in addition to everything else, he had from time to time 
given Brown money of which he never kept any record. 
Counting the credit of $7000, the supplies worth $13,000, and 
estimating the other cash contributions at only $3000, it ap- 
pears that Brown was successful in raising $23,000 toward his 
project of putting a company into the field. But his inability 
to use the $7000 en route, and his long delay in reaching Tabor, 
together with necessary expenditures for horses and wagons 
and wages, reduced him soon to distress. When he arrived at 
his base of action, Tabor, he had only twenty-five dollars left.^' 
Various causes contributed to Brown's delay. He was at 
Canastota on May 14, at Peterboro on May 18, reached 
Cleveland on May 22, and Akron the next day. On May 27 
he wrote from Hudson that he was "still troubled with the 
ague" and was "much confused in mind." If he should never 
return, he wished that "no other monument be used to keep 
me in remembrance than the same plain old one that records 
the death of my Grandfather & Son & that a short story like 
those already on it be told of John Brown the 5th under that 
of Grandfather." ^^ He added that he was already very short 
of expense money, and that he did not expect to leave for four 
or five days. On June 3, while still at Hudson, he wrote thus 
to Augustus Wattles, over the name of "James Smith:" 

My Dear Sir : I write to say that I started for Kansas some three 
weeks or more since, but have been obliged to stop for the fever 
and ague. I am now righting up, and expect to be on my way again 
soon. Free-State men need have no fear of my desertion. There 
are some half dozen men I want a visit from at Tabor, Iowa, to 
come off in the most QUIET WAY, viz: Daniel Foster, late of Bos- 
ton Massachusetts; Holmes, Frazee, a Mr. Hill and William David, 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 293 

on Little Ottawa creek; a Mr. Cochran, on Pottawatomie creek; 
or I would like equally well to see Dr. Updegraff and S. H. Wright, 
of Ossawatomie; or William Phillips, or CONWAY, or your honor. 
I have some very important matters to confer with some of you 
about. Let there be no words about it. Should any of you come out to 
see me wait at Tabor if you get there first. Mr. Adair, at Ossawato- 
mie, may supply ($50,) fifty dollars, (if need be), for expenses on 
my account on presentation of this. Write me at Tabor, Iowa, Fre- 
mont County.^^ 

On the 9th of June, Brown wrote to William A. Phillips in a 
similar strain, to which Phillips replied from Lawrence on June 
24,68 saying that neither he nor Holmes nor others whom he 
had seen could go to Tabor, that there was then no necessity 
for military measures, and that the arms were safer with Brown 
than with any one else. If he came into Kansas, he would be 
protected. Wattles's reply was similarly discouraging, bring- 
ing the oracular advice: "Come as quickly as possible, or 
not come at present, as you choose."" Frazee (the teamster 
who had taken Brown out of Kansas in the previous fall) had 
not returned; Foster, Mr. Wattles did not know; Holmes was 
ploughing at Emporia, and Conway and Phillips were talking 
politics. Meanwhile, Brown had visited Milwaukee on June 
16, for what specific purpose is not known; he had tried to 
induce Forbes to meet him in Cleveland on June i/,^^ and 
then went to Chicago to meet Gerrit Smith. On June 24 he 
attended at Tallmadge, Ohio, the semi-centennial of the 
founding of that town. The address was delivered by the Rev. 
Leonard Bacon. At its close, a message came to the speaker 
that John Brown was present and would like to speak about 
Kansas. Mr. Bacon sent back word to Brown that any such 
address would be "entirely inconsistent with the character of 
the occasion," — a happening which inspired Mr. Bacon to 
write to Governor Wise, after Brown's capture, that it was to 
many at Tallmadge proof of Brown's evident derangement on 
the slavery question. ^^ Brown's pocket memorandum-book, a 
rough diary from January 12, 1857, on, contains this entry 
on June 29, also showing that he had returned to Ohio from 
Chicago: "June 29th Wrote Joseph Bryant Col Forbes, and D 
Lee Child ; all that I leave here Cleveland this day for Tabor, 
Iowa; & advise Forbes, & Child, to call on Jonas Jones." 

By July 6 the memorandum-book records Brown's pre- 



294 JOHN BROWN 

sence in Iowa City. Here he received word from Richard 
Realf, for some time to come one of his followers, and after- 
wards well known as a poet of no mean ability, that he was 
awaiting him at Tabor with one hundred and ten dollars 
— the hundred and fifty of National Kansas Committee 
money, minus Realf's expenses. This money had been sent 
to Brown on June 30 by Edmund B. Whitman, the Commit- 
tee's agent in Lawrence, in response to an urgent appeal from 
Brown, to whom Realf wrote also the good news that, as the 
government had entered a nolle prosequi in the case of the 
Free State prisoners, Brown need be under "no apprehension 
of insecurity to yourself or the munitions you may bring with 
you." ^^ By July 17, Brown had only reached Wassonville, 
Iowa. He had had to obtain two teams and two wagons at 
a cost of seven hundred and eighty-six dollars, and to hire a 
teamster (his third son, Owen, who had been at Tabor for a 
time). He had had to "rig up and load" the teams, and in 
consequence of an injury to a horse, he had lost ten days on 
the road. In order to make their scant funds hold out, "and to 
avoid notice," he and his son "lived exclusively on herring, 
soda crackers, and sweetened water for more than three weeks 
(sleeping every night in our wagons), except that twice we got 
a little milk and a few times some boiled eggs." ^^ At last, on 
August 7, he and his son reached their old quarters in Tabor, 
the home of Jonas Jones. 

By this time it was perfectly apparent that there was to be 
no bloodshed in Kansas that summer. There was another new 
Governor in the Territory, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, 
who had succeeded Governor Geary after that official's resig- 
nation in March, because of the failure of the pro-slavery 
Pierce administration to give him proper support. So fair an 
historian as Mr. Rhodes has declared that Geary was an ideal 
Governor,^2 ^nd a study of his brief administration of Kansas 
inevitably leads to the conclusion that, whatever his faults, 
he strove earnestly to be judicial and honorable, and to bring 
peace and justice to Kansas. Like Reeder,, Geary was a firm 
Democrat, and like him he left Kansas convinced of the right- 
eousness of the Free State cause. Walker, his successor, had 
been Senator from Mississippi, Secretary of the Treasury, had 
practically framed the tariff act of 1846, and was, therefore, 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 295 

well known to the country as a politician of more than usual 
ability and standing. He was reluctant to go to Kansas, where 
he arrived on May 26, having obtained before his depar- 
ture theconsentof the new President, Buchanan, that any Con- 
stitution for the State of Kansas which might be framed 
should be submitted to the people. His appointment in itself 
helped to avert any outbreaks, since the Southerners felt sure 
— too sure — that he was one of their own. As soon as it 
was apparent that he and his able secretary of state, Fred- 
erick P. Stanton, were bent on seeing justice done, the pro- 
slavery forces, and President Buchanan as well, turned against 
them, with the result that Secretary Stanton was removed 
from of^ce, and Governor Walker resigned, in the following 
December. Walker, the fourth governor since October 6, 
1854, exceeded by only thirty days Governor Geary's brief stay 
of six months.^^ 

As a whole, however, the outlook for freedom in Kansas 
was comparatively favorable when John Brown reached 
Tabor. The Lecompton conspiracy, by which a pro-slavery 
Constitution was to be forced on Kansas by a trick, had not 
yet developed ; and while there had been sporadic cases of law- 
lessness in certain counties, and James T. Lyle, a pro-slavery 
city recorder of Leavenworth, had been killed by William 
Haller, a Free State man, in an affray at the polls, the year 
1857 was, on the whole, one of quiet and progress for the bona 
fide settlers of Kansas. Free Soilers were pouring into the 
State in large force, and the number of slaves remained so small 
that both sides realized the growing ascendency of the Free 
Soil cause. The Topeka, or Free State, Legislature had met on 
January 6, 7 and 8, when a dozen of its members had been 
arrested and taken to Tecumseh ; it met again in Topeka on 
June 13, without interference from Governor W^alker, and ad- 
journed four days later after passing some excellent measures. 
About this time, there was a Free State convention in Topeka, 
presided over by General Lane, which endorsed the Topeka 
movement, urged. Free State men not to participate in the 
15th of June election of delegates to the Lecompton Con- 
stitutional convention, and declared the Territorial laws to 
be without force. A similar Free State convention met in 
Topeka on July 15 and 16, with James H. Lane again presid- , 



296 JOHN BROWN 

ing and Governor Robinson as one of the speakers. It called 
a mass convention for August 26, at Grasshopper Falls, urged 
upon the Governor the propriety of submitting the Topeka 
Constitution to the people, and made nominations for the of- 
fices to be filled at the coming Free State election on August 
9. Meanwhile, in accordance with what afterwards seemed a 
gravely mistaken decision of the Topeka convention of June 
9, the Free State men had declined to participate in the elec- 
tion of June 15 for delegates to the Constitutional convention. 
Only twenty-two hundred pro-slavery votes were cast in all, 
which showed that the Free State men could easily have out- 
voted their enemies, as was clearly proved when more than 
seventy-two hundred anti-slavery votes were cast at the Free 
State election of August 9. It was then too late ; the Lecompton 
Constitutional convention was in the hands of the pro-slavery 
men, headed by the Surveyor-General, John Calhoun, a bitter 
and unscrupulous slavery champion. They agreed upon a Con- 
stitution which had been carefully prepared by the Southern 
leaders in Washington, and lent themselves readily to the 
plan to get slavery into Kansas without the consent of the 
majority of its bona fide inhabitants. 

The Free State election of August 9 was held two days 
after Brown's arrival at Tabor. The heavy vote cast was 
fresh proof of the ascendency of the party of peace among 
the Free State men. The Grasshopper Falls convention 
also showed, by its decision to participate in the election 
of October 5 for Territorial delegate, that the drift was 
toward working out a Kansas victory by resort to the time- 
honored American method of correcting abuses — the bal- 
lot-box. Governor Walker guaranteed a fair election, and 
lived up to his promise by setting aside fraudulent returns. 
Robinson and Lane favored taking part in the election, Con- 
way, Phillips and Redpath, three of Brown's staunchest 
friends, opposing. Altogether, Brown found that nothing had 
been lost by the long delay in his arrival near the scene of 
action; there was not the slightest need for his "volunteer- 
regulars;" the only time Governor Walker had ordered out 
the United States troops was when dissatisfied with the 
holding of an independent city election at Lawrence on 
July 13. This course the Governor denounced as certain 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 297 

to mean treason and bring on "all the horrors of civil war," 
if persisted in. His prompt action discouraged the radicals 
under Lane, who thereupon was the more ready for a dif- 
ferent course. Rifles the Free State men had at this moment 
no need of or desire for. As to becoming a political leader 
and putting the stiffening into Robinson's backbone, for 
which Mr. Stearns and others hoped, that was a line of ac- 
tion not to Brown's taste, and the defeat of his friends in the 
Grasshopper Falls convention must have added to his dis- 
satisfaction with Kansas conditions. It is not, therefore, sur- 
prising if his mind turned more and more to the coming raid 
against slavery along a more timid and more vulnerable 
frontier than that of Missouri. 

The day after his arrival at Tabor, John Brown wrote to 
Mr. Stearns of his various disappointments, hindrances 
and lack of means; these and ill-health had depressed him 
greatly. Two days later he wrote again and in better spir- 
its. ^^ He was "in immediate want of from Five Hundred to 
One Thousand Dollars for secret service &' no questions asked ^ 
"Rather interesting times" were expected in Kansas, he 
wrote, "but no great excitement is reported." "Our next 
advices," he continued, "may entirely change the aspect of 
things. / hope the friends of Freedom will respond to my 
call: & 'prove me now herewith.'" He had "learned with 
gratitude" what had been done to render his wife and chil- 
dren comifortable by the purchase of the Thompson farm. 
Then, as the result of Forbes's arrival, he forwarded to Mr. 
Stearns "the first number of a series of Tracts lately gotten 
up here," of which Forbes, and not Brown, was the author. 
It is entitled 'The Duty of the Soldier,' and is headed, in 
small type, "Presented with respectful and kind feelings 
to the Officers and Soldiers of the United States Army in 
Kansas," the object being to win them from their allegiance 
to their colors and induce them to support the Free State 
cause. This it does indirectly by asking whether the "sol- 
diery of a Republic" should be "vile living machines and 
thus sustain Wrong against Right." There are but three 
printed pages of rambling and discursive discussion of the 
soldiery of the ancient republics, and of the princes of an- 
tiquity, and a consideration of authority, legitimate and 



298 JOHN BROWN 

illegitimate — as ill-fitted as possible an appeal to the regu- 
lar soldier of 1857. To the copy which he sent to Augustus 
Wattles, Brown appended the following in his own hand- 
writing, as a "closing remark:" 

It is as much the duty of the common soldier of the U S Army 
according to his ability and opportunity, to be informed upon all 
subjects in any way affecting the political or general welfare of his 
country: & to watch with jealous vigilance, the course, & man- 
agement of all public functionaries both civil and military : and to 
govern his actions as a citizen Soldier accordingly : as though he were 
President of the United States. 

Respectfully yours, A Soldier/^ 

Other copies John Brown sent to Sanborn, Theodore 
Parker and Governor Chase, of Ohio,^^ asking each for his 
frank opinion of the tract and also for aid in raising the 
five hundred to one thousand dollars he needed so sorely. 
Sanborn, and probably Parker, wrote his disapproval of 
Forbes's attempt to seduce the soldiery of the Union; and 
only Gerrit Smith, to w^hom Forbes himself sent a copy with 
an appeal for help for his family in Paris, seems to have been 
pleased with it. He thought it "very well written," and 
added, "Forbes will make himself very useful to our Kan- 
sas work." For the Forbes family he subscribed twenty-five 
dollars, and urged Thaddeus Hyatt to raise some money in 
New York for this purpose and forward it to Sanborn "as 
soon as you can." '^ 

But Forbes's usefulness to Brown was not of long dura- 
tion; by November 2 he was on his way back to the East 
from Nebraska City.^^ He had found no one at Tabor to 
drill save his employer and one son, Owen; and no funds 
save sixty dollars, which Brown gave to him (doubtless out 
of the National Kansas Committee's one hundred and ten) 
toward his expenses." Rifle-shooting at a target on the out- 
skirts of Tabor was their out-door drill, while in-doors they 
studied Forbes's 'Manual of the Patriotic Volunteer,' and 
discussed military tactics and their respective plans in re- 
gard to the raid into Virginia. ^° 

One of those who met John Brown at this time, the Rev. 
H. D. King, now of Kinsman, Ohio, records thus his recol- 
lections of some of their table talk:^^ 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 299 

"I tried to get at his theology. It was a subject naturally sug- 
gested by my daily work. But I never could force him down to dry 
sober talk on what he thought of the moral features of things in 
general. He would not express himself on little diversions from the 
common right for the accomplishment of a greater good. For him 
there was only one wrong, and that was slavery. He was rather 
skeptical, I think. Not an infidel, but not bound by creeds. He was 
somewhat cranky on the subject of the Bible, as he was on that of 
killing people. He believed in God and Humanity, but his attitude 
seemed to be: 'We don't know anything about some things. We do 
not know about the humanity matter. If any great obstacle stand in 
the way, you may properly break all the Decalogue to get rid of it.' " 

"We are beginning to take lessojis & have (we think) a very 
capable Teacher. Should no disturbance occour: we may pos- 
sibly think best to work back eastward. Cannot determine yet'' 
wrote Brown to his wife and children on August 17.^2 gjjt 
this life at Tabor soon palled on Forbes, particularly as there 
was a sharp disagreement between Brown and himself as to 
the future campaign, and increasing evidence that there was 
to be no active service in Kansas that year. The needs of 
his family weighed heavily upon him, and a growing sense 
of wrong done him by the Massachusetts friends of Brown, 
whom Forbes dubbed "The Humanitarians," in not supply- 
ing the salary Brown had promised, led to bitter denunciations 
of them soon after Forbes arrived in the East. 

Jonas Jones and the Rev. John Todd having promptly 
turned over to Brown the arms stored in the clergyman's 
cellar, he was able to write on August 13 to Sanborn that he 
had overhauled and cleaned up those that were most rusted. 
All were in "middling good order." ^^ The question then was 
how^ to get them to Kansas, and this involved also a deci- 
sion as to Brown's own policy. Although apparently anxious 
to return to Kansas at once, he did not leave Tabor for the 
Territory until the day he saw Forbes off for the East at 
Nebraska City, November 2. Various reasons are apparently 
responsible for the delay: the failure of Kansas friends to come 
to him; the desire to await the outcome of the fall elections; 
an injury to his back, and a recurrence of his fever and ague. 
The arms were finally left behind; when Brown started for 
Lawrence, he went in a wagon drawn by two horses and driven 
by his son Owen. 



300 JOHN BROWN 

As to Brown's return to Kansas, James H. Holmes wrote, 
on August 1 6,^^ that there might be a very good opening for 
the "business," for which Brown had bought his "stock of 
materials, . . . about the first Monday in October next. . . . 
I am sorry," he continued, 

"that you have not been here, in the territory, before. I think that 
the sooner you come the better so that the people & the Territo- 
rial authorities may become familiarized with your presence. This 
is also the opinion of all other friends with whom I have conversed 
on this subject. You could thus exert more influence. Several times 
we have needed you very much." 

But Augustus Wattles, a wise counsellor, wrote on August 
21 without enthusiasm as to Brown's final arrival, that 
"those who had entertained the idea of resistance [to outside 
authority] have entirely abandoned the idea."^^ Only the 
erratic Lane, who was then the sole person trying to stir up 
strife in Kansas, and is accused by reputable witnesses of 
planning schemes of wholesale massacre of pro-slavery men 
through a secret order, was on fire for Brown's presence 
in the Territory, but it was the Tabor arms rather than 
their owner he really desired. His first letter to Brown ran 
thus: 

(Private) 

Lawrence Sept. 7, 57- 

Sir 

We are earnestly engaged in perfecting an organization for the 
protection of the ballot box at the October election (first Monday.) 
Whitman & Abbott have been east after money & arms for a month 
past, they write encouragingly, & will be back in a few days. We 
want you with all the materials you have. I see no objection to your 
coming into Kansas publicly. I can furnish you just such a force 
as you may deem necessary for your protection here & after you 
arrive. I went up to see you but failed. 

Now what is wanted is this — write me concisely what trans- 
portation you require, how much money & the number of men 
to escort you into the Territory safely & if you desire it I will 
come up with them. 

Yours respectfully 

J. H. Lane.'* 

To this Brown replied, on the i6th of September,^^ that 
he had previously written to Lane of his "strong desire" to 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 301 

see him; "as to the job of work you enquire about I suppose 
that three good teams with well covered waggons, & ten really 
ingenious, industrious men (not gassy) with about $150. in 
cash, could bring it about in the course of eight or ten days." 
Before an answer to this could arrive, Brown learned from 
Redpath, who also hoped to see him in the Territory soon, 
that Lane had appointed him "Brigadier-General 2nd Bri- 
gade 1st Division," ^^ rather an empty honor, for Lane was as 
generous with brigadier-generalcies as a profligate European 
potentate with decorations for his creditors, even casual vis- 
itors to the Territory receiving these commissions.^^ Certain 
it is that this distinction did not cause Brown to exert himself 
additionally to enter Kansas, not even when there appeared 
a Mr. Jamison, who bore the high-sounding title of "Quarter- 
master-General of the Second Division." "General" Jamison 
brought a letter from Lane, dated Falls City, September 29,^° 
declaring that "it is all important to Kansas that your things 
should be in at the earliest possible moment & that you should be 
much nearer at hand than you are." He enclosed fifty dollars, 
added that "Gen'l" Jamison had more, and insisted that 
"every gun and all the ammunition" be sent in. "I do not 
know that we will have to use them, but I do know we should 
be prepared." All of this made not the slightest impression 
on Brown, as Jamison came alone, having left the ten staunch 
men Brown had asked for "about thirty miles back." The 
names of these men were all unknown to him, and on inquir- 
ing about Jamison, Brown found that "Tabor folks (some of 
them) speak slightingly of him, notwithstanding that he too 
is a general." ^1 Moreover, Jamison brought no teams with 
him. Brown thereupon returned the fifty dollars to Lane with 
the following letter : ^" 

Tabor Iowa 30 Sept. 57. 
My dear sir 

Your favor from Falls City by Mr. Jamison is just received also 
$50. (fifty dollars) sent by him, which I also return by same hand as 
I find it will be next to impossible in my poor state of health to go 
through in such very short notice, four days only remaining to get 
ready load up & go through. I think, considering all the uncertain- 
ties of the case want of teams &c, that I should do wrong to set out, 
I am disappointed in the extreme. 

Very respectfully your friend 

John Brown. 



302 JOHN BROWN 

The next day, Brown wrote at length to Mr. Sanborn, en- 
closing copies of his correspondence with Lane.^^ He outlined 
his immediate future as follows: " I intend at once to put the 
supplies I have in a secure place, and then to put myself and 
such as may go with me where we may get more speedy com- 
munications, and can wait until we know better how to act 
than we do now." He also wrote : " I am now so far recovered 
from my hurt as to be able to do a little; and foggy as it is, 
'we do not give up the ship.' I will not say that Kansas, wa- 
tered by the tears and blood of my children, shall yet be free 
or I fall." Brave as this sentiment is, it only increases the 
mystery of Brown's delaying at Tabor. In this same letter 
to Sanborn, he wrote in high praise of Lane's speech at the 
Grasshopper Falls convention, and throughout, Lane had been 
more sympathetic to Brown than any of the other Kansas 
leaders. There is nothing to show that the injury of which 
he wrote twice to Lane was a serious one. Brown did not re- 
port it to Mr. Sanborn in his long letter of August 13, after 
his arrival in Tabor, nor is there any mention of it in his 
family letters of this period, so far as they have been preserved. 
True, his financial conditions had not improved, because he 
had apparently received from the East only $72.68, which 
came from James Hunnewell, Treasurer of the Middlesex 
County Massachusetts Kansas Aid Committee.^^ Besides 
having Owen Brown and Hugh Forbes to aid him, he was 
in a community not only intensely Abolition, but at this 
time extremely loyal to him personally, and ready to help. 
Yet there was none of the determination to reach Kansas at 
any cost, to be expected from the iron-nerved man who cap- 
tured Harper's Ferry. An excuse given by Brown to Mr. San- 
born was the lack of news: " I had not been able to learn by 
papers or otherwise distinctly what course had been taken in 
Kansas until within a few days; and probably the less I have 
to say the better." Still, he had received a number of letters 
from friends in Kansas, and Tabor was always obtaining 
news from there. Why did he not despatch Owen Brown or 
Forbes, or go himself quietly, if he was in doubt? 

Four days after writing as above to Mr. Sanborn, Brown's 
state of mind appears from a letter of October 5 to the Adairs 
at Osawatomie,^^ in which he said: 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 303 

"I have been trying all season to get to Kansas; but have failed 
as yet through ill health, want of means to pay Freights, travelling 
expenses &c. How to act now; I do not know. If you have not already 
sent me the $95 sent for me; to my family last season; I would be 
most glad to have it come by Mr. Charles P. Tidd; if you can do it 
without distressing yourself, or family." 

In addition, he asked for all that Mr. Adair could tell him 
about conditions in Kansas, and for "reliable Kansas late 
papers." Obviously, Brown, grim, self-willed, resolute chief- 
tain that he generally was, appears baffled here and lacking 
wholly in a determination to reach the scene of action at any 
cost. Whether it was because of physical disability; or fear of 
arrest and punishment for the Pottawatomie crimes; or mere 
uncertainty as to the drift of affairs in Kansas; or whether his 
mind was now so bent on Virginia that he had lost interest 
in all else, and did not wish to lose his arms ; or whether the 
physical and financial difficulties were insurmountable, or 
because of all these reasons, that he lingered so long in Tabor, 
is not likely ever to become known. It will be seen that, 
when he finally reached Kansas, he stayed but a few days, 
was practically in hiding, and gave more time and thought 
to securing recruits for Harper's Ferry than to anything 
else. 

At least one of the Massachusetts backers was impatient 
and angry at the delay, — Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 
then, as always in the Abolition days, flaming for quick and 
vigorous action. To soothe his discontent, Mr. Sanborn wrote 
to him thus on September 11, in defence of Brown :9*' . 

"... You do not understand Brown's circumstances. . . . He 
is as ready for a revolution as any other man, and is now on the 
borders of Kansas safe from arrest but prepared for action, but he 
needs money for his present expenses, and active support. I believe 
he is the best Disunion champion you can find, and with his hundred 
men, when he is put where he can raise them, and drill them (for he 
has an expert drill officer with him) will do more to split the Union 
than a list of 50,000 names for your Convention, good as that is. 

"What I am trying to hint at is that the friends of Kansas are 
looking with strange apathy at a movement which has all the ele- 
ments of fitness and success — a good plan, a tried leader, and a 
radical purpose. If you can do anything for it now, in God's name 
do it — and the ill result of the new policy in Kansas may be pre- 
vented." 



304 JOHN BROWN 

This letter Is of special value in view of subsequent efiforts 
to make Brown appear as one who had no sympathy with the 
disunion doctrines of the radical wing of the Abolitionists." 
The fact remains that at this time Brown himself was not 
willing to do and dare at any cost, and was unable to triumph 
over the obstacles that confronted him at Tabor, until finan- 
cial aid finally came from E. B. Whitman in Lawrence. The 
latter reported to Mr. Stearns, under date of October 25,^8 
that he had borrowed one hundred and fifty dollars to send 
to Brown, who would be at Lawrence "a week from Tuesday 
[November 3] at a very important council, Free State Cen- 
tral Com., Ter. Executive Com., Vigilance Committee of 52, 
Generals and Capts of the entire organization." "By great 
sacrifice," wrote Lane to Brown on October 30,^^ "we have 
raised, & send by Mr. Tidd, $150. I trust the money will be 
used to get the guns to Kansas, or as near as possible. . . . 
One thing is certain: if they are to do her any good, it will be 
in the next few days. Let nothing interfere In bringing them 
on." This time Brown accepted the money, — he also received 
one hundred dollars from the Adairs at this juncture, — and 
entered Kansas, without, however, gratifying Lane by bring- 
ing In the arms. He set out on November 2, parting from 
Forbes at Nebraska City, and drove straight to the vicinity of 
Lawrence, where he stopped at the home of E. B. Whitman, 
arriving after the council at which Mr. Whitman had hoped 
for his presence — probably on November 5. 

He stayed but two days with Mr. Whitman,* obtaining 
tents and bedding and some more money, five hundred dol- 
lars, from that able agent of the Massachusetts Kansas Com- 
mittee, who, in the following February, could not conceal his 
vexation at Brown's disappearance from Kansas. After 
receiving the supplies, wrote Mr. Whitman, i<^° 

"he then left, declining to tell me or anyone where he was going 
or where he could be found, pledging himself, however, that if 
difficulties should occur he would be on hand and pledging his life 
to redeem Kansas from slavery. Since then nothing has been heard 
of him and I know of no one, not even his most intimate friends, 

* Among those he saw at this time was William A. Phillips, who recorded in the 
Atlantic Monthly for December, 1879, the outlines of their conversation, which 
he erroneously placed in February, 1857, instead of November of that year. 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 305 

who know where he is. In the meantime he has been much wanted, 
and very great dissatisfaction has been expressed at his course and 
now I do not know as even his services would be demanded in any 
emergency." 

It is interesting to note In this connection that, in Novem- 
ber, 1857, a Free State "Squatters' Court" was organized in 
the southern Kansas counties of Linn, Anderson and Bour- 
bon, for the trial of contested land claims and similar cases. 
In order to inspire terror, the judge of the court was called 
"Old Brown," although John Brown was distant from the 
Territory. Dr. Rufus Gllpatrick was elected judge of the 
court. ^"^ If John Brown was absent, his reputation was on 
hand and In service. 

Within a week, Brown was In Topeka, from which place he 
reported as follows to Mr. Stearns: ^^^ 

Topeka Kansas T. i6th Nov 1857 
Dear Friend 

I have now been in Kansas for more than a Week: & for about 
Two days with Mr. Whitman, & other friends at Lawrence. I find 
matters quite unsettled; but am decidedly of the opinion that there 
will be no use for the Arms or ammunition here before another 
Spring. I have them all safe, & together unbroken: & mea?i to keep 
them so: until I can see how the matter will be finally terminated. 
I have many calls uppon me for their distribution; but shall do no 
such thing until I am satisfyed that they are really needed. I mean 
to be busily; but very quietly engaged in perfecting my arangements 
during the Winter. Whether the troubles in Kansas will continue or 
not; will probably depend on the action of Congress the coming 
Winter. Mr. Whitman has paid me $500 for you which will meet 
present wants as I am keeping only a small family. Before get- 
ting your letter saying to me not to draw on you for the $7000 (by 
Mr. Whitman) I had fully determined not to do it unless driven 
to the last extremity. / did not mean that the secret service money 
I asked for; should come out of you; & hope it may not. Please 
make this hasty line answer for friend Sanborn; & for other friends 
for this time. May God bless you all; is the earnest wish of your 
greatly obliged Friend 

John Brown 

P S If I do not use the Arms & Ammunition in actual service; 
I intend to restore them unharmed ; but you must not flatter your- 
self on that score too soon. 

Yours in Truth 
J B 



306 JOHN BROWN 

To the Adairs he wrote on November 17:1°^ "I have been 
for some days in the territory but keeping very quiet, & 
looking about to see how the land lies. We left Tabor at once 
on the return of Mr. Tidd who brought us your letter; & $100 
cash. ... I do not wish to have any noise about me at pre- 
sent; as / do not mean to 'trouble Israel.' " Kansas at that 
time was quiet enough, despite Lane's feeling that the arms 
might be needed. The election of October 5 for the new Ter- 
ritorial Legislature and for delegate to Congress had resulted 
in a great Free State victory. The Free State men elected 
their delegate by 4089 votes and chose thirty-three out of 
fifty-two members of the Legislature. Governor Walker set 
aside the fraudulent returns from several precincts in which 
there had been scandalous frauds; but there was no allegation 
of interference from outside the State. It is hard to understand 
what vague fears or wild schemes led Lane to think on 
October 30 that there might be some important happenings 
within the next few days. Marcus J. Parrott, the Free State 
delegate to Congress, had received his certificate of election, 
and the utmost tranquillity reigned. The Lecompton Constitu- 
tional convention did not, it is true, adjourn until Novem- 
ber 3, and the product of its deliberation, or rather of the delib- 
erations of the Southern leaders in Washington, was not yet 
on its way to the Capitol, where the debate over it, with 
Stephen A. Douglas opposed, was to absorb the nation for a 
period of three months, February, March and April of 1858. 
But Lane was not justified, even then, in anticipating any 
fraud or outrage calling for forcible intervention; his own 
opportunity, in which he was at his best, came later in No- 
vember, when, by stumping the Territory, he largely induced 
the acting Governor, Stanton, to call a special session of the 
Legislature to order the submission of the Lecompton Con- 
stitution to the people for approval. 

In brief, the party of peace was in the ascendant; even in 
the East there was beginning to be a realization that successes 
at the polls were more effective than "Beecher's Bibles." 
Thus Mr. Stearns wrote on November 14 to E. B. Whit- 
man r^**^ "I believe your true policy is, to meet the enemy at 
the polls, and vote them down. You can do it and should do 
it, only being prepared to defend yourselves if attacked but 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 307 

by no means to attack them." This was treachery to' Brown's 
blood-and-iron policy in the home of his friends. The decision 
of the Free State leaders to make the best of the situation and 
work under the existing Territorial government, instead of 
refusing to have anything to do with it, involved, of course, a 
complete change of policy. It touched no responsive chord in 
Brown's breast. One of his biographers remarks that there 
was no fighting for him to do in 1857 because he had done his 
work so thoroughly in 1856. Nothing could be further from 
the fact. The progress to freedom and prosperity of Kansas 
was due to several causes, but especially to an abandonment of 
the policy of carrying on an unauthorized war, and of meet- 
ing assassination with assassination. 

There is only one allegation that Brown came in touch with 
the Free State leaders during his brief stay in Kansas in 1857. 
There was then in existence a Free State secret society, called 
into being by fear of the Lecompton Constitutional conven- 
tion, and determined to prevent the success of the conspiracy 
to force slavery upon Kansas through its acts. Mr. R. G. 
Elliott, of Lawrence, states 1°^ that the society was pledged to 

"'unman' the convention soon after its adjournment, a term of 
elastic definition, meaning anything from obtaining resignations 
of officials by persuasion, to removing them by capital excision. 
Abduction was the method indicated at that juncture. . . . John 
Brown had recently come from Tabor, Iowa, and was in the neigh- 
borhood in seclusion, was communicated with by William Hutch- 
inson and expressed his readiness to execute the plans of the 
order but with the men exclusively of his own selection. To the 
fear expressed by Robinson that Brown would resort to bloodshed, 
Hutchinson gave assurance that Brown pledged his faith to be 
governed strictly by the expressed wishes of the order, and further- 
more that he had surveyed the situation at Lecompton and that he 
could seize Calhoun [the head of the Constitutional convention] and 
carry him to a place within one hundred miles where he could hold 
him safely for three months." 

But the scheme was blocked by Calhoun's removing to St. 
Joseph. 

The most important result of this visit of Brown to Kansas 
was his recruiting his first men for the Harper's Ferry raid. 
No sooner had he reached Mr. Whitman's than he sent for 
John E. Cook, whom he had met after the battle of Black Jack, 



3o8 JOHN BROWN 

before the dispersal of his forces by Colonel Sumner. ^"^ When 
Cook came, Brown informed him simply that he was engaged 
in organizing a company for the purpose of putting a stop to 
the aggressions of the pro-slavery forces. Cook agreed to join 
him, and recommended Richard Realf, Luke F. Parsons and 
R. J. Hinton. On Sunday, November 8, Cook and Parsons 
had a long talk with Brown in the vicinity of Lawrence, and 
a few days later, Cook received a note asking him to join 
Brown, with Parsons if possible, on Monday, November 1 6, at 
a Mrs. Sheridan's, two miles south of Topeka. They were to 
bring their arms, ammunition and clothing. Cook made all 
his preparations to meet Brown at the time appointed, but 
had to go alone. He stayed with Brown a day and a half at 
Mrs. Sheridan's, and then went to Topeka, where they were 
joined by Aaron D. Stevens (Charles Whipple), Charles W. 
Moffet and John H. Kagi. They at once left Topeka for Ne- 
braska City, and camped at night on the prairie northeast of 
Topeka. What followed, Cook stated in his Harper's Ferry 
confession : 

"Here, for the first, I learned that we were to leave Kansas,_to 
attend a military school during the winter. It was the intention 
of the party to go to Ashtabula County, Ohio. Next morning 
[November i8] I was sent back to Lawrence to get a draft of 
$80. cashed [$82.50 according to Brown's memorandum-book], and 
to get Parsons, Realf and Hinton to go back with me. I got the 
draft cashed. Capt. Brown had given me orders to take boat to 
St. Joseph, Mo., and stage from there to Tabor, Iowa, where he 
would remain for a few days. I had to wait for Realf for three or four 
days; Hinton could not leave at that time. I started with Realf and 
Parsons on a stage for Leavenworth. The boats had stopped run- 
ning on account of the ice. Stayed one day at Leavenworth, and 
then left for Weston where we took stage for St. Joseph, and from 
thence to Tabor. I found C. P. Tidd and Leeman at Tabor. Our 
party now consisted of Capt. John Brown, Owen Brown, A. D. 
Stephens, Chas Moffett, C. P. Tidd, Richard Robertson [Richard- 
son], Col. Richard Realf, L. F. Parsons, W. M. Leeman and my- 
self.* We stopped some days at Tabor, making preparations to 
start. Here we found that Capt Brown's ultimate destination was the 
State of Virginia." 

The very day that Brown wrote to the Adairs, " I may find 
it best to go back to Iowa," he set off for Tabor. The vacilla- 

* Cook overlooked here John H. Kagi, who was also present. 



NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 309 

tion of the last three months was over. His whole soul was now 
wrapped up in his Harper's Ferry plan; Kansas was thence- 
forth forgotten. Upon her further struggles for freedom, her 
soil watered by his children's "tears and blood," he turned his 
back; his readiness to die for her if necessary was put aside. 
He would never have returned to the Territory, had not 
untoward and unexpected circumstances compelled him to 
resume the role of border chieftain in 1858. Henceforth his 
whole energies were concentrated on "troubling Israel" in 
Virginia. 



CHAPTER IX 

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 

John Brown's newest recruits, Cook, Realf and Parsons, did 
not take kindly to the announcement, at Tabor, that Virginia 
was to be the scene of their armed operations against slavery. 
Warm words passed between Cook and their leader, for Cook, 
like Realf and Parsons, had supposed that they were to be 
trained to operate against Border Rufifians only. * After a good 
deal of wrangling, Cook stated, they agreed to continue, as 
they had not the means to return to Kansas, and the rest 
of the party were so anxious that they should go on with 
them. Like their associates, these three men were adventur- 
ous spirits, spoiled, like thousands of others, by the Kansas 
troubles for leading a quiet and settled life. Anything that 
smacked of excitement irresistibly appealed to them. Most 
of them were very young ; ^ some had seen their names in the 
newspapers because of their warfare in Kansas, and were not 
averse to further notoriety and the chance to make reputa- 
tions for themselves. All of them were steadfast opponents of 
slavery and ready to go to any lengths to undermine it. But 
beyond all this, in the dominating spirit of John Brown himself 
must be found the true reason for their readiness to join so 
desperate a venture as Brown outlined to them. There was, 
Mr. Parsons testifies, a magnetism about Brown as difficult for 
these simpler men to resist as for the philosophers at Concord.^ 
He walked now more than ever like an old man, and made the 
impression of one well on toward threescore and ten, when not 
yet fifty-eight years old, with hair that was not white but gray. 
Yet there was as little doubt about his vigor and strength as 
there was of the intensity of his hatred of slavery. To his new 
followers Brown declared that" God had created him to be the 
deliverer of slaves the same as Moses had delivered the children 
of Israel ; "^ and they found nothing in this statement to make 
them doubt his sanity, or that seemed inherently improbable. 
A fanatic they recognized him to be; but fanatics have at all 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 311 

times drawn satellites to them, even when the alliance meant 
certain death. And so Parsons, Realf and Cook, like Leeman, 
Tidd and Kagi — the latter a man of unusual parts — were 
content to go onward across Iowa. During their brief stay in 
Tabor, Brown offered to take his men, go to Nebraska City, 
and rescue from jail a slave who had run away and had lost his 
arm when captured, if the Tabor people would pay the actual 
expenses. He promised to put the slave into their hands, but 
they were afraid of the consequences and did not give him the 
means. ^ 

It was on the long wintry journey to Springdale, Iowa, with 
two wagons laden with the Sharp's rifles and ammunition, that 
the details of the Virginia venture were gradually discussed. 
The caravan left the friendly hamlet of Tabor on December 
4, according to the diary of Owen Brown, valuable fragments 
of which survived the Harper's Ferry raid.^ "Took leave of 
Tabor folks perhaps for the last time," and "started for Iowa 
City, Springdale and Ohio," are the entries which record the 
departure. Progress was slow, for all of the men walked and 
the weather was bitter cold; sometimes it is recorded that 
"Father used harsh words" in keeping the party, and particu- 
larly the son, in hand. They camped by the wayside, avoiding 
towns as much as possible, and made up in warmth of debate 
for the heat they lacked otherwise. On December 8 the entry 
reads : 

" Cold, wet and snowy; hot discussion upon the Bible and war 
. . . warm argument upon the effects of the abolition of slavery upon 
the Southern States, Northern States, commerce and manufactures, 
also upon the British provinces and the civilized world ; whence 
came our civilization and origin? Talk about prejudices against 
color; question proposed for debate, — greatest general, Washing- 
ton or Napoleon." 

This is an excellent sample of the wide range of the daily 
talks through the five months these strongly marked charac- 
ters were leagued together. The diary concludes on this day: 
"Very cold night; prairie wolves howl nobly; bought and car- 
ried hay on our backs two and a half miles; some of the men 
a little down .In the mouth — distance travelled 20 miles." 
Fortunately, these travellers were inured to hardships. Their 
skill with the rifle aided in eking out their limited commissary. 



312 JOHN BROWN 

Sundays they stayed in camp. Evenings were frequently spent 
in singing, by Brown's request; he always joined with a hearty 
good-will and named the pieces that he wanted sung, such as 
"The Slave has seen the Northern Star," "From Greenland's 
Icy Mountains," etc. In this amusement Stevens led; for he 
had an exquisite voice, with clear, bugle notes. On Christmas 
Day they passed Marengo, a town about thirty miles from 
Iowa City; and presumably reached their immediate destina- 
tion, Springdale, fifteen miles beyond Iowa City, on the third 
day thereafter. 

On December 29, according to John Brown's own diary, 
Realf began to board with James Townsend, mine host of the 
tavern at West Branch, known as the Traveller's Rest. Of this 
Quaker Boniface unsupported tradition has it that when 
Brown, dismounting from a mule at his door on the trip 
through Iowa in October, 1856, asked Townsend whether he 
had heard of John Brown, the tavern-keeper, "without reply- 
ing, took from his vest pocket a piece of chalk and, removing 
Brown's hat, marked it with a large X; he then replaced the 
hat and solemnly decorated the back of Brown's coat with 
two large X marks; lastly he placed an X on the back of the 
mule." All of which pantomime was an indication that Brown 
and his animals were on the free list of the hotel. ^ 

On the 29th, at noon, the other ten members of Brown's 
party began to board with John H. Painter, a friendly Quaker 
at Springdale, with whom they remained until January 11, 
when they moved to the farmhouse of William Maxson, some 
distance from the village, which still stands, albeit in a condi- 
tion of growing ill-repair.^ One dollar and a half a week was 
the moderate price asked for each man's board, "not includ- 
ing Washing nor extra lights." Here Brown speedily found it 
necessary to abandon his plan to continue on to Ashtabula in 
his adopted State. He was unable to sell his teams and wagons 
for cash; the financial panic of 1857 was now in full swing; 
board was cheap at Springdale, and the village itself was as 
remote a place, and as little likely to be thought the scene of 
plottings against the peace of a sovereign American state, as 
any hamlet in the country. Moreover, Mr. Maxson was ready 
to take the teams and wagons off Brown's hands and pay 
for them by boarding his men. It was a fortunate arrange- 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 313 

ment all around, and it left the leader free to go eastward and 
unfold to his New England friends the precise nature of the 
assault on Israel upon which he was now embarked. 

On January 15, 1858, before he left for the East, Brown did, 
however, go with some of his men into even greater details of 
his Virginia plan than on the winter's trip across Iowa. To 
Parsons, for instance, he here mentioned Harper's Ferry for 
the first time, but without speaking of an attack upon the 
arsenal. John Henrie Kagi knew this Virginia district well, 
and Brown's plan, as it was at this time, commended itself 
to his mind, which was severely analytical and not given to 
enthusiasms. 

Just what the plan for the raid then was, appears from 
a long letter of Hugh Forbes, of May 14, 1858, to Dr. S. G. 
Howe, detailing his differences of opinion with Brown and 
demanding that he and his men be disarmed.^ As soon as he 
reached Tabor, in August, 1857, Forbes says, they compared 
notes as to the coming attack on slavery in Virginia and 
brought out their respective schemes. Brown proposed, with 
from twenty-five to fifty colored and white men, well armed 
and taking with them a quantity of spare arms, "to beat up 
a slave quarter in Virginia." Forbes objected to this that: 

"No preparatory notice having been given to the slaves (no no- 
tice could go or with prudence be given them) the invitation to rise 
might, unless they were already in a state of agitation, meet with no 
response, or a feeble one. To this Brown replied that he was sure 
of a response. He calculated that he could get on the first night 
from 200 to 500. Half, or thereabouts, of this first lot he proposed 
to keep with him, mounting 100 or so of them, and make a dash at 
Harper's Ferry manufactory destroying what he could not carry off. 
The other men not of this party were to be sub-divided into three, 
four or five distinct parties, each under two or three of the original 
band and would beat up other slave quarters whence more men 
would be sent to join him. 

" He argued that were he pressed by the U. S. troops, which after 
a few weeks might concentrate, he could easily maintain himself 
in the Alleghenies and that his New England partisans would in 
the meantime call a Northern Convention, restore tranquility and 
overthrow the pro-slavery administration. This, I contended, could 
at most be a mere local explosion. A slave insurrection, being from 
the very nature of things deficient in men of education and experi- 
ence would under such a system as B. proposed be either a flash 
in the pan or would leap beyond his control, or any control, when it 



314 JOHN BROWN 

would become a scene of mere anarchy and would assuredly be 
suppressed. On the other hand, B. considered foreign intervention 
as not impossible. As to the dream of a Northern Convention, I 
considered it as a settled fallacy. Brown's New England friends 
would not have courage to show themselves, so long as the issue 
was doubtful, see my letter to J, B. dated 23 February." 

After weeks of discussion. Brown, Forbes declared, "acqui- 
esced or feigned to acquiesce" in a mixed project styled "The 
Well-Matured Plan," to which Forbes assented to secure 
mutual cooperation. Forbes's own plan, it must be admitted, 
sounds much more reasonable and practical than Brown's, 
and deserves, therefore, to be made a matter of record, par- 
ticularly as it had without doubt its influence on Brown. It 
was as follow^s: 

"With carefully selected white persons to organize along the 
Northern slave frontier (Virginia and Maryland especially) a series 
of stampedes of slaves, each one of which operations would carry 
off in one night and from the same place some twenty to fifty slaves; 
this to be effected once or twice a month, and eventually once or 
twice a week along the non-contiguous parts of the line; if possible 
without conflict, only resorting to force if attacked. Slave women 
accustomed to field labor, would be nearly as useful as men. Every- 
thing being in readiness to pass on the fugitives, they could be 
sent with such speed to Canada that pursuit would be hopeless. In 
Canada preparations were to be made for their instruction and 
employment. Any disaster which might befall a stampede would 
at the utmost compromise those only who might be engaged in that 
single one ; therefore we were not bound in good faith to the Abo- 
litionists (as we did not jeopardize them) to consult more than those 
engaged in this very project. Against the chance of loss by occa- 
sional accidents should be weighed the advantages of a series of 
successful 'runs.' Slave property would thus become untenable 
near the frontier; that frontier would be pushed more and more 
Southward, and it might reasonably be expected that the excite- 
ment and irritation would impel the proslaveryites to commit some 
stupid blunders." 

As he stated his plan to Parsons at Springdale, Brown laid 
stress upon his determination not to fight or molest any one, 
except to help the escaping slaves to defend themselves or to 
flee to Canada. This satisfied Parsons for the moment, but it 
is to be noted that the men left at Springdale did not much 
discuss the details of their project with one another. Owen 



. A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 315 

Brown's diary for February tells that on the 12th there was 
"talk about our adventures and plans." In the main, discus- 
sion ranged from theology and spiritualism to caloric engines, 
and covered every imaginable subject between them. Much 
talk of war and fighting there was, and drilling with wooden 
swords. Stevens, by reason of his service in the Mexican War, 
and subsequently in the United States Dragoons, was drill- 
master in default of Forbes. Sometimes they went into the 
woods to look for natural fortifications; again they discussed 
dislodging the enemy on a hill-top by means of "zigzag 
trenches." Forbes's 'Manual' was diligently perused. Some- 
times the men quarrelled with one another; sometimes their 
boisterousness during their long stay irritated their peaceful 
Quaker neighbors, many of whom were but recent settlers in 
that vicinity. Some of them, Owen Brown records, suspected 
Mr. Maxson's boarders of being Mormon spies in disguise, 
and others declared that they were "no better than runa- 
ways" and ought to be driven out of the community, — a 
thought suggested, perhaps, by the rapidity with which they 
won for themselves sweethearts in the neighborhood by 
Othello-like tales of their adventures and daring in their Kan- 
sas wanderings. But some of these affairs of the heart resulted 
seriously and unfavorably to two or three of the raiders, who 
carried the scars thereof to their end. "One of the diversions 
at their home was the trial by jury of any member violating 
certain proprieties or rules. I see that I have made a note of 
a trial given Owen for writing down in his pocket-book the 
name of a lady in the vicinity. [Miss Laura Wascott.] Owen 
pleaded guilty," ^° — thus Parsons recalled an incident of the 
winter. But in the main their discipline was rigid ; there were 
black marks given for misconduct, and Cook was once seri- 
ously and severely censured "for hugging girls in Springdale 
Legislature." 

This was the mock body with which they beguiled the long 
winter evenings, drafting laws for an ideal "State of Topeka; " 
in it Cook, Kagi and Realf displayed their unusual powers as 
debaters. Sometimes this legislature met at Mr. Maxson's, 
more often in the village school, a mile or so away, and it fol- 
lowed the regulation procedure with its bills and its debates. 
Soon Realf was in demand as a speaker and lecturer, ^i But 



3i6 JOHN BROWN 

when at Springdale he was not the poorest of the band in 
the manoeuvres and gymnastics practised in the field behind 
the Maxson house for three hours every fair day, with a view 
to developing the men physically to the utmost advantage. 
Only a few of the neighbors suspected or knew that these ex- 
ercises were not intended to fit the men for service in behalf 
of Kansas. Townsend of the Traveller's Rest; Maxson and 
Painter, Dr. H. C. Gill and Moses Varney were more or less 
in John Brown's confidence in 1858, and most of them tried to 
dissuade him from his project. ^^ gut, as the Eastern friends 
found out, there was no possibility of success along that line 
of argument. Brown had made up his mind to realize the plan 
of his lifetime, even though it sorely troubled the peace-lov- 
ing Quaker friends at Springdale. One of them, Painter, gave 
twenty dollars to Brown, saying: "Friend, I cannot give thee 
money to buy powder and lead, but here's twenty dollars 
toward thy expenses." ^' 

In short, the Springdale settlement as a whole wished him 
well, despite the fact that he was emphatically a man of 
war, and that his men, as Owen Brown at this time recorded, 
believed with Jay that "he that is guilty of such oppression 
[as slavery], making it perpetual upon the posterity of the 
oppressed, might justly be killed outright." To them slavery 
was the sum of all oppression, and one of their debates was an 
inquiry into the reason why the spirit of 1776 was so lacking 
in the' face of the wrongs of 1858. But this little group of 
young men, among whom was Richard Richardson, a runaway 
slave from Lexington, Missouri, who had attached himself to 
Brown at Tabor, found their stay in Springdale as care-free as 
if they had not agreed to challenge with their lives the most 
powerful of American institutions. As has been set forth at 
length in Irving B. Richman's charming and valuable essay, 
'John Brown Among the Quakers,' "the time spent in Spring- 
dale was a time of genuine pleasure to Brown's men. They en- 
joyed its quiet, as also the rural beauty of the village and the 
gentle society of the people." ^^ Brown's men have all gone; 
hardly any one remains in Springdale to tell the tale of their 
stay; the Maxson and other houses of '58 are falling into de- 
cay; but the quiet beauty of Springdale remains. It still con- 
sists of one broad street with modest frame houses surrounded 




THE SCHOOL-HOUSE AT SPKINGUALE, 
W'liere the Mock Legislature met 



IOWA 




HOUSE OF REV. JOHX TODD, TAUOR, IOWA 
Where John Brown stored liis guns and ammunition 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 317 

by green and rolling fields ; but the Quaker element is little 
noticeable, and there are fewer people residing there to-day 
than fifty years ago. 

Thirteen days after leaving Tabor, John Brown was in the 
Rochester house of Frederick Douglass, ^^ who had so long 
been the confidant of his plan as to Virginia, and in numer- 
ous talks informed him that the time was ripe for the long- 
cherished undertaking. On the way East he had stopped in 
Lindenville, Ohio,i*^ to visit his son John and talk over with 
him the unpleasant developments in regard to Hugh Forbes, 
about which Brown had written to his son on January 15, at 
Springdale. He had decided, on receiving a violent and abu- 
sive letter, to correspond with Forbes through a third person ; 
the malevolent spirit displayed by that adventurer making it 
necessary for his safety, If for no other reason. Forbes had not 
waited long after his return to the East — he had stopped at 
Rochester on his way to New York and obtained financial aid 
from Frederick Douglass ^^ — to begin, in December, 1857,3 
long series of abusive letters to all of Brown's Eastern friends 
and to the leading anti-slavery statesmen in Washington. 
Having now firmly convinced himself that he had been out- 
rageously treated, he took somewhat of the blackmailer's posi- 
tion and demanded money on pain of publishing to the world 
the facts about Brown and his plans. The needs of his family, 
whether genuine or exaggerated, became an obsession with 
him ; of Brown he demanded another six months' pay, on the 
ground that his engagement was for a year. His begging 
was endless and persistent; had he devoted but a tithe of 
the energy he put into his letters to earning a livelihood, 
he must have supported easily those dependent upon him. 
To most of those he addressed he was utterly unknown or at 
most a name; he had not, of course, any document to prove 
that he had been employed either by the Massachusetts Kan- 
sas Committee or the National Kansas Committee. Yet 
he insisted that he had been, — misled, perhaps, into believ- 
ing that the Kansas Committees were similar to the Euro- 
pean revolutionary bodies of which he had had experience 
or cognizance. He even forced his way, in the spring of 
1858, to Senator Henry Wilson, on the floor of the Senate, 
during a recess of that body, and retailed to him in great 



3i8 JOHN BROWN 

excitement the story of his wrongs, renewing to Senator Wil- 
son the demand he had then for some time been making, that 
Brown and his men be disarmed. ^^ To William H. Seward he 
portrayed Brown as a "very bad man who would not keep his 
word; " "a reckless man, an unreliable man, a vicious man." ^^ 
As a sample of his utterances, the following will suffice to 
show either that the man was unbalanced, or that he was 
deliberately trying to use Brown's inability to pay him more 
than six months' salary as a club to get means — whether 
earned or not — from the New England friends: -° 

" Capt. B. came to me with a letter from the Rev. Joshua Leavitt 
of the New York Independent. Upon my making inquiries of him he 
stated that Capt. B. had no means of his own to meet any obliga- 
tions but that he believed him to be backed by good and responsible 
men, and that at any rate I might repose faith in his word. Brown 
on his part trusted to the New England promises made to him, 
which promises being subsequently broken (because it was imagined 
that the border ruffians had abandoned Kansas) he of course could 
not fulfill his compact with me, and when I remonstrated, the hu- 
manitarians replied 'We do not know you — We made no engage- 
ment with you;' while Brown said 'Be quiet do not weaken my 
hand;' and when I refused to be quiet, since my children were being 
killed by slow torture through the culpability of the humanitarians, 
then B. denies his obligation to me rather than displease the men 
of money. The humanitarians and Brown are guilty of perfidy and 
barbarity, to which may be added stupidity. . . . You do not take 
into consideration that you are perpetrating an atrocious wrong, 
while I am struggling to save my family. I am the natural protector 
of my children, nothmg but death shall prevent my defending them 
against the barbarity of the New England speculators." 

He was by this time charging that the whole Virginia pro- 
posal was a scheme of A. A. Lawrence and others interested in 
New England mills, to make money by temporarily causing 
an increase in the price of cotton through the panic bound to 
follow Brown's attack. 

On February 9, Brown wrote to his son John, directing him 
to reply to a letter from Forbes in the following disingenuous 
terms: 2* 

"Your letter to my father, of 27th January, after mature reflec- 
tion, I have decided to return to you, as I am unwilling he should, 
with all his other cares, difficulties and trials, be vexed with what 
I am apprehensive he will accept as highly offensive and insulting, 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 319 

while I know that he is disposed to do all he consistently can for 
you, and will do so unless you are yourself the cause of his disgust. 
I was trying to send you a little assistance myself, — say about 
forty dollars; but I must hold up till I feel different from what I do 
now. I understood from my father that he had advanced you already 
six hundred dollars, or six months' pay (disappointed as he has been) 
to enable you to provide for your family; and that he was to give 
you one hundred dollars per month for just as much time as you 
continued in his service. Now, you in your letter undertake to in- 
struct him to say that he had positively engaged you for one year. 
I fear he will not accept it well to be asked or told to state what he 
considers an untruth. Again, I suspect you have greatly mistaken 
the man, if you suppose he will take it kindly in you, or any living 
man, to assume to instruct him how he should conduct his own busi- 
ness and correspondence. And I suspect that the seemingly spiteful 
letters you say you have written to some of his particular friends 
have not only done you great injury, but also weakened his hands 
with them. While I have, in my poverty, deeply sympathized with 
you and your family, who, I ask, is likely to be moved by any ex- 
hibition of a wicked and spiteful temper on your part, or is likely to 
be dictated to by you as to their duties?" 

To this son. Brown explained that he wished to see how a 
sharp and well-merited rebuke would affect Forbes; if it had 
the desired effect, they would send forty dollars. " I am anx- 
ious," Brown added, "to understand him fully before we go 
any further. ..." 

While the Forbes matter was doubtless much on his mind 
during his stay of three weeks with Frederick Douglass, his 
chief concern was to bring about a meeting of his warmest 
and most generous supporters at Gerrit Smith's, in Peterboro, 
in the latter half of February. He declined a call from Mr. 
Stearns and Mr. Sanborn to visit Boston because : 22 

"It would be almost impossible for me to pass through Albany, 
Springfield, or any of those points, on my way to Boston; & not 
have it known; & my reasons for keeping quiet were such that when 
I left Kansas; I kept it from every friend there; & I suppose it is still 
understood that I am hiding somewhere in the territory ; & such will 
be the idea; untill it comes to be generally known that I am in these 
parts. I want to continue that impression as long as I can; or for 
the present. . . . My reasons for keeping still are sufficient to keep 
me from seeing my Wife; df Children: much as I long to do so." 

To them Brown had written at length, on January so,^^o{ 
his relief of mind at being again so near them, of his hope of 



320 JOHN BROWN 

devising a way of meeting some one of the deserted North 
Elba homestead : 

"The anxiety I feel to see my Wife; & Children once more; I 
am unable to describe. . . . The cries of my poor sorrowstricken de- 
spairing Children whoose ' tears on their cheeks ' are ever in my Eye; 
& whose sighs are ever in my Ears; may however prevent my enjoy- 
ing the happiness I so much desire. But courage, courage, Courage 
the great work of my life (the unseen Hand that ' girded me ; & who 
has ijtdeed holden my right hand may hold it still;) though I have not 
known Him;' at all as I ought:) I may yet see accomplished; {God 
helping;) & be permitted to return, &■ rest at Evening." 

To Thomas Wentworth Higginson he thus appealed : 2* 

" I now want to get for the perfecting of by far the most impor- 
tant undertaking of my whole life; from $500, to $800, within the 
next Sixty days. I have written Rev Theodore Parker, George L. 
Stearns, and F. B. Sanborn Esqur, on the subject; but do not know 
as either Mr Stearns, or Mr Sanborn, are abolitionists I suppose 
they are. Can you be induced to opperate at Worcester, & elsewhere 
during that time to raise from Anti-slavery men & women (or any 
other parties) some part of that amount? . . . Hope this is my last 
effort in the begging line." 

Higginson could not go to Peterboro, neither could Mr. 
Stearns; moreover, Brown's letters failed to interest them 
because of their indefinlteness. To Mr. Sanborn the invitation 
was particularly attractive because of the presence at Gerrit 
Smith's of a classmate, Edwin Morton, then a tutor in Mr. 
Smith's "family. "Our old and noble friend. Captain John 
Brown of Kansas arrives this evening," is the entry in Gerrit 
Smith's diary on February 18, 1858,25 and his welcome was in 
keeping with these words. For Brown this worthy philanthro- 
pist conceived a genuine affection, which appears in the later 
letters to the raider, and not even in the Stearns or Russell 
homes was he a more welcome guest. On this, the most impor- 
tant of all visits, he lost no time in unfolding his plans to his 
generous patron, and on the 24th he was able to write to his 
family: "6 "Mr. Smith & family go all lengths with me," — 
a significant phrase in view of Mr. Smith's subsequent efforts 
to make it appear that he was not really cognizant of the 
lengths to which Brown's plan was to carry them. The final 
and most important exchange of views was held when Mr. 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 321 

Sanborn arrived, on Washington's Birthday. What took place 
then has been set forth in detail by Mr. Sanborn at various 
times." In an upper room of the Smith mansion, Brown "un- 
folded his plans" for a campaign somewhere in slave territory 
east of the Alleghanies, and read to them, so Mr. Sanborn 
records, 

"the singular constitution drawn up by him [in the Frederick 
Douglass house in Rochester] for the government of the territory, 
small or large, which he might rescue by force from slavery, and for 
the control of his own little band. It was an amazing proposition 
— desperate in its character, wholly inadequate in its provision 
of means, and of most uncertain result. Such as it was, Brown 
had set his heart on it as the shortest way to restore our slave- 
cursed republic to the principles of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence; and he was ready to die in its execution — as he did." 

Amazing proposition that it was, Brown's auditors gave 
him respectful attention until after midnight, "proposing 
objections and raising difficulties; but nothing could shake the 
purpose of the old Puritan." He was able in some fashion to 
meet every criticism of his plans, to suggest a plausible way 
out of every difficulty, while to the chief objection, the slender 
means for undertaking a war upon the dominating American 
institution, he opposed merely a Scriptural text: "If God be 
for us, who can be against us?" He wanted to open his cam- 
paign in the spring; all he needed was five hundred or eight 
hundred dollars, for he now had the arms and sufficient men. 
"No argument could prevail against his fixed purpose." The 
discussion went over until the next day ; and despite the fool- 
hardiness of the venture, despite the strange Constitution, 
which to many minds remains the strongest indictment of 
Brown's sanity, his will prevailed. He did not at this time, 
Mr. Sanborn testifies, speak specifically of starting at Har- 
per's Ferry or taking the arsenal ; the point of departure was 
left vague, but the general outlines were about as he had 
described them to Forbes. Back of it all, in his head, was the 
purpose of setting the South afire and precipitating a conflict. 
Finally, says Mr. Sanborn : -^ 

"We saw we must either stand by him or leave him to dash himself 
alone against the fortress he was determined to assault. To with- 



322 JOHN BROWN 

hold aid would only delay, not prevent him. As the sun was setting 
over the snowy hills of the region where we met, I walked for an 
hour with Gerrit Smith among woods and fields (then included in 
his broad manor) which his father purchased of the Indians and 
bequeathed to him. Brown was left at home by the fire, discussing 
points of theology with Charles Stewart [Stuart]. Mr. Smith re- 
stated in his eloquent way the daring propositions of Brown, whose 
import he understood fully, and then said in substance: 'You see 
how it is; our dear old friend has made up his mind to this course, 
; and cannot be turned from it. We cannot give him up to die alone; 
we must support him. I will raise so many hundred dollars for him; 
you must lay the case before your friends in Massachusetts, and 
ask them to do as much. I see no other way.' I had com.e to the 
same conclusion, and by the same process of reasoning. It was done 
far more from our regard for the man than from hopes of immediate 
success." 

Well might Brown rejoice. With Mr. Smith's wealth and 
influence behind him, It could now be only a short while before 
he would have In hand the small sum he asked, and be actually 
in battle with the forces of slavery. 

Mr. Sanborn left on February 24 for Boston, ready to work 
for the plan there and summon a gathering of a trusted few 
who could be counted on to put their shoulders to the wheel. 
He had scarcely left when Brown, In his exaltation and exulta- 
tion of spirit, sent him these characteristic lines: -^ 

My Dear Friend 

Mr Morton has taken the liberty of saying to me that you felt 
3^ inclined to make a common cause with me. I greatly rejoice at 
this ; for I believe when you come to look at the ample field I labour 
in: & the rich harvest which (not only this entire country, but) the 
whole world during the present & future generations may reap from 
its successful cultivation: you will feel that you are out of your ele- 
ment until you find you are in it; an entire Unit. What an incon- 
ceivable amount of good you might so effect; by your counsel, your 
example, your encouragement, your natural, & acquired ability ; for 
active service. And then how very little we can possibly loose? Cer- 
tainly the cause is enough to live for; if not to * for. I have only 

had this one opportunity in a life of nearly Sixty years, & could I be 
continued Ten times as long again, I might not again have another 
equal opportunity. God has honored but comparatively a very 
small part of mankind with any possible chance for such mighty & 
soul satisfying rewards. But my dear friend if you should make up 
your mind to do so I trust it will be wholly from the promptings of 

* Word omitted. 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 323 

your own spirit ; after having thoroughly counted the cost. I would 
flatter no man into such a measure if I could do it ever so easily. I 
expect nothing but to "endure hardness" : but I expect to effect a 
mighty conquest even though it be like the last victory of Samson. 
I felt for a number of years in earlier life: a steady, strong, desire ; 
to die: but since I saw any prospect of becoming a " reaper" in the 
great harvest I have not only felt quite willing to live: but have 
enjoyed life much; & am now rather anxious to live for a few years 
more. 

On the same day, Brown left Peterboro for the home of 
Dr. and Mrs. J. N. Gloucester, a well-to-do colored couple 
of Brooklyn, who by wise investments and steady industry 
had accumulated a fortune.^" To them he revealed his plan, 
with full confidence in their ability to keep a secret, just as he 
got into frank communication with J. W. Loguen, a negro of 
Syracuse. These and other colored people assisted him with 
counsel and funds, came to believe whole-heartedly in the 
success of his project, and remained faithful to the end. On 
the nth of March, Brown was in Philadelphia, where he met 
on the 15th, at the residence of the Rev. Stephen Smith in 
Lombard Street, a little group of colored men, among them 
Frederick Douglass, the Rev. Henry H. Garnett and William 
Still. 31 To them, too, with surprising but justified faith in the 
ability of numbers to keep so important a conspiracy to them- 
selves, Brown stated his project and appealed for men and 
money, and John Brown, Jr., seconded him, for he had met his 
father in Philadelphia to discuss his own part in the great 
undertaking. His father wished him to take a trip to "Bed- 
ford, Chambersburg, Gettysburg, and Uniontown, in Pennsyl- 
vania, travelling slowly along, and inquiring of every one on 
the way or every family of the right stripe." He also urged 
his son to go "even to Harper's Ferry." ^2 William Still, long 
an active Underground Railroad w^orker in Philadelphia, was 
especially valuable in this time, because of his knowledge of 
the Pennsylvania routes and stations. 

All through this period Brown was endeavoring to enlist new 
recruits. He counted on Frederick Douglass, and the survivors 
of his family still feel that the great colored orator failed, when 
the real test came, to live up to his obligations.^^ A particu- 
lar disappointment at this period in 1858 was his inability to 
reenlist his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, whose services and 



324 JOHN BROWN 

bravery In Kansas had so commended themselves to him. Of 
his daughter Ruth he asked whether any plan could 

"be devised whereby you could let Henry go 'to school' (as you 
expressed it in your letter to him while in Kansas:) I would rather 
NOW have him ' for another term ' : than to have a Hundred average 
schollars. I have a particular & very important; {but not danger- 
ous) place for him to fill; in the 'school ' ; & I know of no man living; 
so well adapted to fill it. I am quite confident some way can be 
devised ; so that you; &" your children could be with him ; & be quite 
happy even: & safe but ' God forbid ' me to flatter you into trouble. 
I did not do it before." ^* 

The daughter replied In doubt, asking what the post of 
his duty was to be, and saying that her husband felt that too 
high an estimate had been placed on his "qualifications as 
a scholar." Ruth's desire to preserve her husband's life con- 
quered in the end her wish to be of service to her father and 
the great cause of the Brown family. ^^ To this Mr. Thompson 
probably owes the fact that he is still, at this writing, in the 
land of the living. 

Before his Philadelphia conference. Brown had made a 
hasty trip to Boston, where he met Higglnson, Parker, Howe, 
Sanborn and Stearns, at the American House during his four 
days' stay from March 5 to 8. To Mr. Parker he wrote, on 
March 7, asking his aid In "composing a substitute for an 
address you saw last season, directed to the officers and sol- 
diers of the United States Army." He had never been able to 
clothe his ideas in language to satisfy himself, but he tried to 
tell the great pulpit orator what he wanted, in these words : ^^ 

"In the first place, it must be short, or it will not be generally 
read. It must be in the simplest or plainest language; without the 
least affectation of the scholar about it, and yet be worded with 
great clearness and power. The anonymous writer must (in the 
language of the Paddy) be 'after others,' and not 'after himself, 
at all, at all.' If the spirit that 'communicated' Franklin's Poor 
Richard (or some other good spirit) would dictate, I think it would 
be quite as well employed as the 'dear sister spirits' have been 
for some years past. The address should be appropriate, and par- 
ticularly adapted to the peculiar circumstances we anticipate, 
and should look to the actual change of service from that of Satan 
to the service of God. It should be, in short, a most earnest and 
powerful appeal to man's sense of right, and to their feelings of 
humanity." 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 325 

Brown also asked for a similar short address, 

"appropriate to the peculiar circumstances, intended for all per- 
sons, old and young, male and female, slaveholding and non-slave- 
holding, to be sent out broadcast over the entire nation. So by 
every male and female prisoner on being set at liberty, and to be 
read by them during confinement." 

Particularly striking is this passage, since it foreshadows 
exactly his treatment of his prisoners at Harper's Ferry: 

"The impressions made on prisoners by kindness and plain deal- 
ing, instead of barbarous and cruel treatment, such as they might 
give, and instead of being slaughtered like vile reptiles, as they might 
very naturally expect, are not only powerful, but lasting. Females 
are susceptible of being carried away entirely by the kindness of an 
intrepid and magnanimous soldier, even when his bare name was 
but a terror the day previous." 

By this appeal Mr. Parker was not moved, his only reply 
being to send to Brown Captain George B. McClellan's 
recently issued report on the armies of Europe." That Brown 
was much concerned with the reading of his followers ap- 
pears from his asking Mr. Sanborn, in February, for copies of 
Plutarch's 'Lives,' Irving's 'Life of Washington,' the best 
written ' Life of Napoleon ' and other similar books, for use at 
Springdale.^^ 

Some idea of the method of raising the funds for Brown 
appears from Mr. Sanborn's letters of this period to Mr. 
Higginson. On March 8 he reported: ^^ 

"Hawkins* has gone to Philadelphia today, leaving his friends 

to work for him. $1000 is the sum set to be raised here — of which 

yourself, Mr. Parker, Dr. Howe, Mr. Stearns and myself each are 

assessed to raise $100 — Some may do more — perhaps you cannot 

come up to that — nor I, possibly — But of $500 we are sure — 

and the $1000 in all probability. . . . Hawkins goes to prepare 

agencies for his business near where he will begin operations. Dr. 

Cabot knows something of the speculation, but not the whole, not 

being quite prepared to take stock. No others have been admitted 

to a share in the business, though G. R. Russell has been consulted." 
*.• 

A meeting was called for March 20, at Dr. Howe's rooms, 

to discuss raising funds, in Mr. Stearns's name. The next day 

Mr. Sanborn stated that: 

* Brown. 



326 JOHN BROWN 

" Mr, Stearns is Treasurer of the enterprise for N. E. — and has 

now on hand $150 having paid H $100. . . . Mr. Stearns has 

given $100 & promises $200 more, but holds it back for a future 
emergency. Mr. Parker has raised his $100 & will do something 
more. Dr. H. has paid in $50 and will raise $100 more. . . . I paid 
Brown $25 — my own subscription — but have as yet been able 
to get nothing else — though I shall do so." ^° 

By April i there were three hundred and seventy-five dol- 
lars in hand, but three weeks later, Brown had received only 
four hundred and ten dollars and was calling urgently for 
the remainder of the one thousand dollars promised. In all 
he received at this time only about six hundred dollars, 
together with other sums raised in New York and Philadelphia 
— a pittance, indeed, with which to begin his crusade. Mr. 
Higginson early did his share. His interview with Brown in 
March had made so deep an impression upon him that he was 
thereafter ready to do and dare with Brown with unflinching 
courage. As it is often said that Brown's chief success lay 
in influencing weaker minds, it is worth noting the impres- 
sion a single talk with him made upon this able and virile 
Worcester clergyman: 

"I met him in his room at the American House [No. 126] in March, 
1858. I saw before me a man whose mere appearance and bearing 
refuted in advance some of the strange perversions which have 
found their way into many books, and which often wholly missed 
the type to which he belonged. In his thin, worn, resolute face there 
were the signs of a fire which might wear him out, and practically 
did so, but nothing of pettiness or baseness; and his talk was calm, 
persuasive, and coherent. He was simply a high-minded, unselfish, 
belated Covenanter; a man whom Sir Walter Scott might have 
drawn, but whom such writers as Nicolay and Hay, for instance, 
have utterly failed to delineate. To describe him in their words as 
'clean but coarse' is curiously wide of the mark; he had no more 
of coarseness than was to be found in Habakkuk Mucklewrath or 
in George Eliot's Adam Bede; he had, on the contrary, that religious 
elevation which is itself a kind of refinement; the quality one may 
see expressed in many a venerable Quaker face at yearly meeting. 
Coarseness absolutely repelled him; he was so strict as to the de- 
meanor of his men that his band was always kept small, while that 
of Lane was large; he had little humor, and none of the humorist's 
temptation toward questionable conversation." ■" 

On one of his Boston visits, Brown also met the Rev. James 
Freeman Clarke at Senator Sumner's residence, according 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 327 

to Mr. Clarke,^- where Brown begged to see the coat worn 
by the Senator when he was attacked, and "looked at it as a 
devotee would contemplate the relic of a saint." This was his 
only recorded meeting with the victim of Preston Brooks's as- 
sault, the news of which had so stirred Brown and his men 
prior to the Pottawatomie murders. 

From Philadelphia, John Brown and John, Jr., made a brief 
visit to New Haven and New York; at the latter place the 
well-known Gibbons and Hopper families, prominent among 
the anti-slavery Quakers, were now assisting him. Thence 
they went direct to North Elba, on what was to have been a 
farewell visit prior to the risking of their lives, arriving on 
March 23." By April 2 they were at Gerrit Smith's, again 
under way, and found Mr. Smith as encouraging as usual. 
After a day spent in discussing the Virginia plan, they left for 
Rochester, where they separated on April 5, Brown heading 
for St. Catherine's, Canada, where he arrived on the 7th in 
company with his colored helper, J. W. Loguen.^* Here he 
met by appointment a remarkable negro woman, Harriet 
Tubman, known as the " Moses of her People," whom he now 
relied upon to work for him among the escaped slaves then 
living In large numbers In Canada West, as he later hoped 
that she would be a chief guide to the North of the slaves he 
wished to free in the neighborhood of Harper's Ferry. Of 
her Brown wrote that she was "the most of a man, naturally, 
that I ever met with." Well might she win his admiration, 
for her exploits In leading runaway slaves to freedom, at the 
risk of her own life, form one of the most moving and thrilling 
stories of the entire struggle against slavery. 

At this time there were some thirty to forty thousand 
colored people In Upper Canada, and about twelve hundred In 
Toronto, some of them free-born and In good circumstances; 
a great majority, "freight" of the Underground Railroad. ^^ 
At Buxton, near the shore of Lake Erie, was the "Elgin Asso- 
ciation," a model colony for escaped slaves; and not far from 
this was Chatham, chief town of the County of Kent, also a 
favorite place for the colored men who had found under the 
British flag the personal liberty denied them under the stars 
and stripes. Here were some well-to-do colored farmers and 
mechanics, who had established a good school, Wilberforce 



328 JOHN BROWN 

Institute, for the education of their children, several churches 
and a newspaper of their own/*^ Brown soon made up his mind 
that this would be the best place for the convention of his fol- 
lowers upon which he had now set his heart. He was not will- 
ing to commence his raid upon slavery without some formal- 
ity. Just as he had drawn up regular by-laws for his Kansas 
company to sign, so he now wished to inaugurate his move- 
ment only with a certain ceremonial. It would have been 
cheaper and easier to have gone direct to the scene of action 
in Virginia, but his mind was set on his convention, upon 
which he also counted to draw to his enterprise some, if not 
many, of the escaped slaves in Canada West. 

His visit to St. Catherine's with J. W. Loguen was, there- 
fore, in the nature of a reconnoissance. It lasted a trifle less 
than three weeks, and included a trip to Ingersoll, Chatham, 
and probably to other near-by points. Neither the letters now 
available nor Brown's memorandum-book of 1858 have re- 
corded any details of his movements. But his pen was ever 
busy, and the recruits for his convention were gradually 
enlisted, among them a colored physician. Dr. Martin R. 
Delany, who subsequently served in the colored volunteers, 
with the rank of major, during the Civil War. To see this able 
man, Brown went three times to Chatham "^ before finding 
him, refusing on the first two occasions to leave his name or 
address. To him Brown stated that it was men he wanted, not 
money, and Dr. Delany promised to be on hand at the Chat- 
ham convention and to bring others as well. Finally, Brown 
was ready to lead to Canada the "flock of sheep" he had win- 
tered at Springdale, to which place he journeyed by way of 
Chicago. He arrived at Mr. Maxson's home the 25th of April, 
and two days later was ready to start, as he wrote on that day 
to his family. 

He found the band of conspirators reinforced by George B. 
Gill, a native of Iowa, and Stewart Taylor, a young Canadian, 
who responded to his name at the final roll-call in Harper's 
Ferry and there lost his life. Gill, a man of education and some 
literary ability, had known Brown in previous enterprises, had 
been in Kansas and introduced Taylor to John Brown. Two 
other notable accessions were the brothers Coppoc, Barclay 
and Edwin, who also participated in the final raid, much to 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 329 

the grief of their Quaker mother, whose quaint and fast- 
decaying house may still be seen in Springdale. A woman of 
marked intelligence, a strong Abolitionist, she had herself in- 
stilled into the minds of her sons that hatred of slavery which 
had led Barclay to Kansas in 1857, to aid in making it a free 
State, and resulted in Edwin's giving up his life on the scaffold 
with that pure faith and calm resignation naturally associated 
with the Quaker training.'*^ The Coppocs were not ready to go 
to Chatham, and so did not figure in the convention, as did the 
men who had boarded at Mr. Maxson's. These John Brown 
found still harmonious, despite some occasional friction, to 
be expected, perhaps, among vigorous men of strong, restless 
character, cooped up in one small farmhouse. Leeman had 
given Owen Brown the greatest concern of all,'*^ and Tidd had 
laid himself open to a grave charge by the father of a Quaker 
maiden resident not far away.^'^ But aside from this, there 
seems to have been genuine regret at the leaving of this body 
of vigorous young men who had done so much to enliven and 
entertain the neighborhood ; several of them kept up a lengthy 
correspondence with friends in Springdale up to the hour of 
the tragedy which gave them a place in history. Certainly, 
Brown could not complain of the spirit of his followers, when 
he rejoined them. Stevens wrote to his sister on April 8: "I 
am ready to give up my life for the oppressed if need be. I 
hope I shall have your good will and sympathy in this glorious 
cause." ^1 Leeman rejoiced that he was "warring with slav- 
ery the greatest Curse that ever infested America." Richard 
Realf's and John E. Cook's letters are in a similar strain. 

Leaving Springdale with nine of the men, shortly before 
noon on the 27th, Brown and his followers took a three o'clock 
train for West Liberty, and arrived at Chicago at five the next 
morning. For breakfast they went to the Massasoit House, 
only to be told that one of their number, the negro, Richard 
Richardson, could not be served with them. True to their 
belief that all men were created free and equal, and to 
their comradeship, they marched out of the hotel. Brown at 
their head, and soon found another hostelry, the Adams House, 
at which the color-line was not drawn. ^^ Leaving Chicago at 
four-thirty, the ten were in Detroit at six o'clock on the morn- 
ing of Thursday, April 29, and were breakfasting at the Villa 



330 JOHN BROWN 

Tavern, Chatham, by nine o'clock. "Ten persons begin to 
board with Mr. Barber 29th April at Dinner. Three others 
began May ist at Breakfast," Brown's memorandum-book 
records. He himself made his headquarters with James M. 
Bell, a colored man. "Here," wrote Richard Realf to Dr. 
H. C. Gill at Springdale," 

"we intend to remain till we have perfected our plans, which will 
be in about ten days or two weeks, after which we start for China. 
Yesterday and this morning we have been very busy in writing to 
Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips and others of like kin to meet 
us in this place on Saturday, the 8th of May, to adopt our Constitu- 
tion, decide a few matters and bid us goodbye. Then we start. . . . 
The signals and mode of writing are (the old man informs me) all 
arranged. . . . Remember me to all who know our business, but to 
all others be as dumb as death." 

Despite Brown's admonition to his men to write no letters 
while here, John E. Cook was another who corresponded 
freely with friends in Springdale; to two young women he 
observed " that only one thing kept him 

"from being absolutely unhappy, and that is the consciousness that 
I am in the path of duty. I long for the loth of May to come. I am 
anxious to leave this place, to have my mind occupied with the great 
work of our mission. . . . Through the dark gloom of the future I 
fancy I can almost see the dawning light of Freedom ; . . . that I 
can almost hear the swelling anthem of Liberty rising from the md- 
lions who have but just cast aside the fetters and the shackles that 
bound them. But ere that day arrives, I fear that we shall hear the 
crash of the battle shock and see the red gleaming of the cannon's 
lightning." 

Not only were compromising letters of this kind written 
freely to friends and relations, but similar ones received were 
carried about by all the men and kept intact up to the raid 
itself. 

Finally, the 8th of May, the day for the opening of the 
convention, arrived. None of the Eastern backers were pre- 
sent, neither Wendell Phillips, nor Gerrit Smith, nor F. B. 
Sanborn, and no white men save Brown's own party. This 
was now composed, besides himself, of Leeman, Stevens, Tidd, 
Gill, Taylor, Parsons, Kagi, Moffet, Cook, Realf and Owen 
Brown, — twelve in all. The colored men w^ere thirty-four 
in number, among them Richard Richardson, Osborn P. 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 331 

Anderson, James H. Harris, afterwards Congressman from 
North Carolina and Dr. Delany. Only one of these thirty- 
four, O. P. Anderson, actually reached the firing-line. The 
presiding officer was William Charles Munroe, pastor of a 
Detroit colored church, and the secretary was John H. Kagi." 
There were really two distinct conventions. The first, a "Pro- 
visional Constitutional Convention," met on Saturday, May 8, 
at ten in the morning, in a frame school-building on Princess 
Street, the remaining sessions being held in the First Baptist 
Church and in "No. 3 Engine House," which had been erected 
by some colored men, who also formed the fire-company. In 
order to mislead any one who might inquire the meaning of 
these assemblages, it was stated that they were for the pur- 
pose of organizing a Masonic lodge among the colored people. 
After the election of officers, on motion of Dr. Delany, John 
Brown arose to state at length the object of the permanent 
convention and the plan of action to follow it. Dr. Delany 
and others spoke in favor of both projects, and they were 
agreed to by general assent. 

In his testimony before the Mason Committee, early in 
i860, Richard Realf thus set forth the substance of the leader's 
speech : ^^ 

" John Brown, on rising, stated that for twenty or thirty years the 
idea had possessed him like a passion of giving liberty to the slaves. 
He stated immediately thereafter, that he made a journey to Eng- 
land in 1851, in which year he took to the international exhibition 
at London, samples of wool from Ohio, during which period he made 
a tour upon the European continent, inspecting all fortifications, 
and especially all earth-work forts which he could find, with a view, 
as he stated, of applying the knowledge thus gained, with modifica- 
tions and inventions of his own, to such a mountain warfare as he 
thereafter spoke upon in the United States. John Brown stated, 
moreover, that he had not been indebted to anybody for the sug- 
gestion of that plan; that it arose spontaneously in his own mind; 
that through a series of from twenty to thirty years it had gradually 
formed and developed itself into shape and plan." 

After telling of his studies of Roman warfare, of the success- 
ful opposition to the Romans of the Spanish chieftains, of the 
successes of Schamyl, the Circassian chief, and of Toussaint 
L'Ouverture in Hayti, and of his own familiarity with Haytian 
conditions, Brown spoke of his belief that, 



332 JOHN BROWN 

"upon the first intimation of a plan formed for the Hberation of 
the slaves, they would immediately rise all over the Southern 
States. He supposed that they would come into the mountains to 
join him, where he proposed to work, and that by flocking to his 
standard they would enable him (by making the line of mountains 
which cuts diagonally through Maryland and Virginia down through 
the Southern States into Tennessee and Alabama, the base of his 
operations) to act upon the plantations on the plains lying on each 
side of that range of mountains, and that we should be able to es- 
tablish ourselves in the fastnesses, and if any hostile action (as 
would be) were taken against us, either by the militia of the separate 
States or by the armies of the United States, we purposed to defeat 
first the militia, and next, if it were possible, the troops of the United 
States, and then organize the freed blacks under this provisional 
constitution, which would carve out for the locality of its juris- 
diction all that mountainous region in which the blacks were to 
be established and in which they were to be taught the useful and 
mechanical arts, and to be instructed in all the business of life. 
Schools were also to be established, and so on. That was it. . . . 
The negroes were to constitute the soldiers. John Brown expected 
that all the free negroes in the Northern States would immediately 
flock to his standard. He expected that all the slaves in the South- 
ern States would do the same. He believed, too, that as many of the 
free negroes in Canada as could accompany him, would do so. . . . 
The slaveholders were to be taken as hostages, if they refused to let 
their slaves go. It is a mistake to suppose that they were to be 
killed ; they were not to be. They were to be held as hostages for 
the safe treatment of any prisoners of John Brown's who might fall 
into the hands of hostile parties. ... All the non-slaveholders 
were to be protected. Those who would not join the organization of 
John Brown, but who would not oppose it, were to be protected ; 
but those who did oppose it, were to be treated as the slaveholders 
themselves. . . . Thus, John Brown said that he believed, a suc- 
cessful incursion could be made; that it could be successfully main- 
tained ; that the several slave States could be forced (from the posi- 
tion in which they found themselves) to recognize the freedom of 
those who had been slaves within the respective limits of those 
States; that immediately such recognitions were made, then the 
places of all the officers elected under this provisional constitution 
became vacant, and new elections were to be made. Moreover, no 
salaries were to be paid to the office-holders under this constitution. 
It was purely out of that which we supposed to be philanthropy — 
love for the slave." 

After this address, John Brown presented a plan of organ- 
ization, entitled "Provisional Constitution and Ordinances 
for the People of the United States," and moved the read- 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 333 

ing of it. To this there was objection until an oath of se- 
crecy was taken by each member of the convention. An oath 
being moved, John Brown arose and informed the convention 
that he had conscientious scruples about taking any oath; 
that all he desired was a promise that any person who there- 
after divulged any of the proceedings "agreed to forfeit the 
protection which that organization could extend over him." 
Nevertheless, the oath was voted and the president adminis- 
tered the obligation. Thereupon the proposed Constitution 
was read, and after debate on one article, the forty-sixth, it 
was unanimously adopted. The afternoon session was brief, 
being occupied solely with signing the Constitution, "con- 
gratulatory remarks" by Dr. Delany and Thomas M. Kin- 
nard and final adjournment. At the evening session the con- 
vention was a new body, — that called by the Constitution 
adopted by the "Provisional Convention," "for the purpose 
of electing officers to fill the offices specially established and 
named by said Constitution." With the same officers, the 
new convention appointed a committee to make nominations. 
Upon its failing to do so promptly, the convention itself 
elected John Brown Commander-in-Chief, and John H. Kagi, 
JV^Secretary of War. On Monday, May 10, the balloting was 
resumed. Realf was made Secretary of State, George B. Gill, 
Secretary of the Treasury, Owen Brown, Treasurer, and 
Osborn P. Anderson and Alfred M. Ellsworth, members of 
Congress. After the position of President had been declined 
by or for two colored men, the filling of this and other vacan- 
cies was left to a committee of fifteen, headed by John Brown. 
It is not of record, however, that the vacancies were ever 
filled. 

If, after a lapse of fifty years, it seems at first ac if the Con- 
stitution and the entire proceeding belonged to the domain 
of the mock Springdale legislature, the earnestness and seri- 
ousness of the Chatham proceedings cannot be denied, so far 
as the moving spirits were concerned. Some of the men doubt- 
less signed without much consideration; but to the colored 
men, at least, it seemed as if freedom from bondage were 
really in sight for their enslaved brethren. Since Brown was 
able to overrule the objections of practical men like Gerrit 
Smith and George L. Stearns, it is, of course, not to be won- 



334 JOHN BROWN 

dered at If the little gathering in Chatham accepted at Its face 
value the extraordinary document which John Brown laid 
before them. They could but applaud the admirably written 
preamble : " 

"Whereas, Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United 
States is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and 
unjustifiable War of one portion of its citizens upon another por- 
tion; the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment, and 
hopeless servitude or absolute extermination; in utter disregard 
and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in 
our Declaration of Independence: Therefore, we CITIZENS oi the 
UNITED STATES, and the OPPRESSED PEOPLE, who, by 
a RECENT DECISION of the SUPREME COURT ARE DE- 
CLARED to have NO RIGHTS WHICH the WHITE MAN is 
BOUND to RESPECT; TOGETHER WITH ALL OTHER 
PEOPLE DEGRADED by the LAWS THEREOF, DO, for 
the TIAIE BEING ORDAIN and ESTABLISH for OUR- 
SELVES the FOLLOWING PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION 
and ORDINANCES, the BETTER to PROTECT our PER- 
SONS, PROPERTY, LIVES, and LIBERTIES: and to GOVERN 
our ACTIONS." 

This statement. In Its definition of slavery as war, is the key- 
note to Brown's philosophy, and explains better than anything 
else why it was consistent with his devout religious charac- 
ter for him to kill, and to plunder for supplies In Kansas, and 
to take up arms against slavery Itself. There was for him no 
such thing as peace so long as there were chains upon a single 
slave ; and he was, therefore, at liberty to plot and intrigue, to 
prepare for hostilities, without regard to public order or the 
civil laws. Passing beyond the preamble, the Constitution * 
suggests the word "Insane," which the historian Von Hoist 
applies to certain of Its provisions. It actually contemplates 
not merely the government of forces in armed Insurrection 
against sovereign States and opposed to the armies of the 
United States, but actually goes so far as to establish courts, 
a regular judiciary and a Congress. As if that were not 
enough. It provides for schools for that same training of the 
freed slaves In manual labor which Is to-day so widely hailed 
as the readiest solution of the negro problem. Churches, too, 
were to be "established as soon as may be," — as if anything 

* See Appendix. 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 335 

could be more inconsistent with the fundamental plan of 
breaking the forces up into small bands hidden in mountain 
fastnesses, subsisting as well as possible off the land, and prob- 
ably unable to communicate with one another. At this and 
at other points the whole scheme forbids discussion as a prac- 
tical plan of government for such an uprising as was to be car- 
ried out by a handful of whites and droves of utterly illiterate 
and ignorant blacks. As has already been said, it is still a 
chief indictment of Brown's saneness of judgment and his 
reasoning powers. Von Hoist, one of his greatest admirers, 
describes it as a "piece of insanity, in the literal sense of the 
word," and a "confused medley of absurd, because absolutely 
inapplicable, forms." ^^ Yet no one can deny that in many of 
its articles the Brown Constitution is admirable in spirit, as, 
for instance, in the provisions for the enforcement of morality 
and for the humanitarian treatment of prisoners, as well as in 
other measures well adapted to the undertaking. As a chart 
for the course of a State about to secede from the Union and 
to maintain itself during a regular revolution, the document 
was also not without its admirable features. It is impossible, 
however, as regards this extraordinary Constitution, to forget 
that it was drawn for the use of possibly fifty white men and 
hordes of escaping slaves fighting for their lives, not on the 
open prairies of Kansas, or among its scattered hamlets, but 
in well-populated and well-settled portions of the South. 

The Constitution simply emphasizes anew Brown's belief 
that he really could engage in warfare against slavery, and 
could keep at bay the United States army while doing so; that 
with a handful of men and a few hundred guns and mediaeval 
pikes, he could grapple and shake to its foundations an insti- 
tution the actual uprooting of which nearly cost the United 
States Government its existence, and necessitated the sacrific- 
ing of vast treasure and an enormous number of human lives. 
Brown was careful even to provide that no treaty of peace — 
presumably either with the United States or the several South- 
ern States — could be ratified save by his President, his 
Vice-President, a majority of his Congress and of his Supreme 
Court, and of the general officers of the army; that is, his half- 
company of officers was to be considered equal as a treaty- 
making powder with a great nation and its coordinate parts ! It 



336 JOHN BROWN 

is best, therefore, not to attempt to analyze the Chatham Con- 
stitution, but to admire its wording and its composition, and 
lay it aside as a temporary aberration of a mind that in its other 
manifestations defies successful classification as unhinged or 
altogether unbalanced. Fanatical, Brown's mind was; concen- 
trated on one idea to the danger-point, most alienists would 
probably agree; but still it remained a mind capable of ex- 
pressing itself with rare clearness and force, focussing itself 
with intense vigor on the business in hand, and going straight 
to the end in view. 

One point of the Constitution remains to be considered. 
Brown maintained at his trial that he had not sought to over- 
throw the United States Government or that of Virginia; the 
Chatham Constitution was cited against him. A biographer, 
R. J. Hinton, insisted ^^ that Brown was justified in his posi- 
tion by Article XLVi of the Constitution, which reads: "The 
foregoing Articles shall not be construed so as in any way 
to encourage the overthrow of any State Government or of the 
General Government of the United States: and look to no 
dissolution of the Union but simply to Amendment and Repeal. 
And our flag shall be the same that our Fathers fought under 
in the Revolution," This was the only article challenged at 
Chatham, and one vote was cast for the motion to strike it out. 
Accepting it as a disclaimer of hostility to the various govern- 
ments only increases the difficulty. It then appears that 
he was ready to oppose, and if necessary to kill, troops of the 
United States, and to create a civil government over certain 
portions of its territory, as the best way of inducing the United 
States Government to adopt his view of the slavery question. 
The radical Abolitionists openly worked for division by 
peaceful means and refused to make use of their rights as 
citizens; John Brown sought to oppose the authority of the 
Union by force of arms, while denying that any one could con- 
strue his actions as treason or disloyalty. 

A definite and immediate result of the Chatham conven- 
tion was the complete exhaustion of Brown's treasury. His 
Boston friends were expecting him to "turn loose his flock" 
about May 15, but the day before that he was still at Chat- 
ham, and wrote to Mr. Sanborn asking for three or four 
hundred dollars, "without delay. " ^° On the 25th he wrote to 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 337 

his family that "we are completely nailed down at present 
for want of funds, and we ma\' be obliged to remain inactive 
for months yet, for the same reason. You must all learn to be 
patient — or, at least I hope you will." ^^ Brown's chagrin at 
this condition of affairs was intensified by the needs of his men. 
They had left Chatham on May 11 and gone to Cleveland 
and near-by Ohio towns, in search of work to maintain them 
temporarily until they got the signal to reassemble. Now, 
obtaining work even in the most humble capacity was not 
easy in the spring of 1858, when the country had not yet begun 
to recover from the great financial depression of the previous 
fall. To Gill, who had written at once of the poor outlook, — 
there were two thousand men out of work in Cleveland, — 
Brown replied : ^^ 

"I will only inquire if you, any of you, think the difficulties 
you have experienced, so far, are sufficient to discourage a man ? 
. . . I and three others were in exactly such a fix in the spring of 
181 7: between the seaside and Ohio, in a time of extreme scarcity oi 
not only money, but of the greatest distress for want of provisions, 
known during the nineteenth century. . . . We are here [Realf, 
Kagi, Richardson and Leeman had remained in Canada] busy get- 
ting information and making other preparations. I believe no time 
has yet been lost. Owing to the panic on the part of some of our 
Eastern friends, we may be compelled to hold on for months yet. 
But what of that .? " 

Three days later. Brown expressed his satisfaction that all 
but three of the men had then obtained work "to stop their 
board bills." ^^ He had received only fifteen dollars from the 
East, but was in "hourly expectation of help sufficient to pay 
off our bills here, and to take us on to Cleveland to see and 
advise with you." He was compelled to say in this letter that: 

"such has been the effect of the course taken by F. [Forbes] that I 
have some fears that we shall be compelled to delay further action 
for the present. . . . It is in such times that men mark themselves. 
'He that endureth unto the end,' the same shall get his reward. 
Are our difficulties sufficient to make us give up one of the noblest 
enterprises in which men were ever engaged?" 

The difficulties were not great enough to make any of the 
men abandon the project then, though some were indubi- 
tably in straits at times. Indeed, some of them actually 



338 JOHN BROWN 

plotted to go South and raid by themselves, If help did not 
soon come.*'* Cook was the leader in this; during his stay in 
Cleveland he was highly indiscreet, boasting that he was on a 
secret expedition ; that he had killed five men in Kansas; swag- 
gering openly in his boarding-house, and revealing much to 
a woman acquaintance, so that Realf feared that if the expe- 
dition were to be postponed, the greatest danger would not 
be from Forbes, but from Cook's "rage for talking." Richard 
Richardson and John A. Thomas, another colored man, who 
had gone to Cleveland with Brown and Realf, soon returned to 
Canada in fear of arrest, and are not thereafter heard from in 
connection with Brown." Realf later went to New York to 
watch Forbes, and to plan his trip to England to raise funds 
for the cause. 

John Brown himself left Chatham on May 29, and went di- 
rect to Boston, after having been there just a month. ^^ He had 
been urged by Mr. Stearns to meet him in New York, to dis- 
cuss the question of the arms in his possession, during the week 
beginning May 16, but he was unable to do so, and did not see 
any of the Boston friends until he arrived at the American 
House on May 31. As Brown had stated to his men, renewed 
activity on the part of Forbes had filled the Boston backers 
with consternation. Before and during the Chatham conven- 
tion. Brown was writing almost daily to some one about " F.," 
as he referred to him in his memorandum-book. Mr. Higgin- 
son wrote on May 7 to John Brown, from Brattleboro, protest- 
ing against the postponement already talked of : " 

Dear Friend 

Sanborn wrote an alarming letter of a certain H. F. who wishes to 
veto our veteran friend's project entirely. Who the man is I hv. no 
conception — but I utterly protest against any postponement. // 
the thing is postponed, it is postponed for ever — for H. F. can do as 
much harm next year as this. His malice must be in some way put 
down or outwitted — & after the move is once begun, his plots will 
be of little importance. I believe that we have gone too far to go 
back without certain failure — & I believe our friend the veteran 
will think so too. 

This was Brown's own belief. But before he reached Boston 
the die was cast against him, as is seen from this note of Mr. 
Sanborn to Mr. Higginson: ^^ 




^/ryv\y 



-^nJm^ 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 339 

Concord May i8th '58. 
The enclosed from our friend explains itself. The Dr. [Howe] 

has written to an adroit and stinging letter, intended to baffle 

him. Wilson as well as Hale and Seward, and God knows how many 
more have heard about the plot from F. To go on in the face of this 
is mere madness and I place myself fully on the side of P. [Parker] 
S. [Stearns] and Dr. H. [Howe] with G. S. [Gerrit Smith] who does 
count. What Dana says of F's character seems probable. Mr. S. 
[Stearns] and the Dr. will see Hawkins in New York this week and 
settle matters finally. 

The letter from Senator Henry Wilson to Dr. Howe which 
had particularly alarmed the conspirators was a reflection of 
Forbes's sudden appearance before him on the floor of the 
Senate. It bore date of May 9 and read thus: "^^ 

" I write to you to say that you had better talk with some few of 
our friends who contributed money to aid old Brown to organize 
and arm some force in Kansas for defence, about the policy of getting 
those arms out of his hands & putting them in the hands of some 
reliable men in that Territory. // they should be used for other pur- 
poses, as rumor says they may be, it might be of disadvantage to the men 
who were induced to contribute to that very foolish movement. If it can 
be done, get the arms out of his control and keep clear of him at least 
for the present. This is in confidence." 

On JVIay 14, Mr. Stearns sent to Brown, at Chatham, a copy 
of this letter and, writing officially as chairman of the Massa- 
chusetts State Kansas Committee, thus admonished him: ^0 

"You will recollect that you have the custody of the arms alluded 
to, to be used for the defence of Kansas, as agent of the Massachu- 
setts State Kansas Committee. In consequence of the information 
thus communicated to me [by Dr. Howe and Senator Wilson], it 
becomes my duty to warn you not to use them for any other pur- 
pose, and to hold them subject to my order as chairman of said 
committee." 

It was in regard to the arms that Mr. Stearns had sought 
the interview with Brown in New York. The latter agent of the 
Committee besought his Boston friends not to move hastily, 
and pledged himself not to act other than to obtain a perfect 
knowledge of the facts in regard to Forbes, if the two or three 
hundred dollars he needed were sent to him. 

The outcome of Brown's conferences in Boston, which re- 
sulted in the temporary abandonment of the Virginia plan and 



340 JOHN BROWN 

Brown's departure for Kansas, together with the attitude of 
the various conspirators, is thus succinctly set forth in a care- 
fully preserved memorandum of Mr. Higginson's: ^^ 

"Saw [J. B.] in Boston. He showed me F's letter also one fr. S. 
announcing the result of a meeting between himself, G. S., G L S., 
T. P. & Dr H. It was to postpone till next winter or spring when 
they wd. raise $2000 or $3000; he meantime to blind F. by going 
to K. [Kansas] & to transfer the property so as to relieve them of 
responsibility — & they in future not to know his plans. 

"On probing B. I gradually found that he agreed entirely with 
me, considered delay very discouraging to his 13 men & to those in 
Canada, — impossible to begin in the autumn & he wd. not lose a 
day (he finally said) if he had $300 — it wd. not cost $25 apiece to 
get his men fr. Ohio & that was all he needed. The knowledge that 
F. cd. give of his plan wd. be injurious, for he wished his opponents 
to underrate him: but still (as I suggested) the increased terror pro- 
duced wd. perhaps counterbalance this & it wd. not make much 
difference. If he had the means, he wd. not lose a day. 

"On my wondering that the others did not agree with us, he said 
the reason was they were not men of action, they were intimidated by 
Wilson's letter &c. & overrated the obstacles. G. S. he knew to be a 
timid man. G. L. S. & T. P. he did not think abounded in courage. 
H. had more & had till recently agreed with us. 

" But the * old veteran added, he had not said this to them, & 

had appeared to acquiesce far more than he really did ; it was essen- 
tial that they shld. not think him reckless, & as they held the purse 
he was powerless without them, having spent nearly every thing 
received thus far (some $650 fr. them by his book wh. he showed — 
they having promised $1000) — on account of the delay — a month 
at Chatham &c But he wished me not to tell them what he had said 
to me. 

"On Saturday, June 6, I went to see Dr. H. & found that things 
had ended far better than I supposed. The Kansas Com. had 
put some $500 in gold into his [Brown's] hands & all the arms 
— with only the understanding that he shld. go to K. & then 
be left to his own discretion. H. went off in good spirits. H. still 
claimed to agree with me, bt said the others ' wd. not hear of it — 
even P.' & he had to acquiesce & even write a letter urging H to go 
to Kansas." 

This memorandum is erroneous in that it speaks of the Kan- 
sas Committee having given the $500 and the arms. The plain 
fact is that the money came from the same unofficial group 
of friends, and that the arms were given to Brown by the sim- 
ple expedient of having IVIr. Stearns foreclose on them. ]\ir. 

* Word illegible. 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 341 

Stearns had advanced large sums to the Kansas Committee, 
which had never been repaid, asking at the time that the 
arms if unused should come back to him, that he might reim- 
burse himself for his outlay. It will be remembered that the 
Kansas Committee had agreed to this by formal vote, just 
after Mr. Stearns had paid for the two hundred pistols he had 
purchased of the Massachusetts Arms Company for Brown out 
of his own pocket, but in the name of the Kansas Committee. 
Mr. Stearns now simply exercised this option, and so notified 
the immediate conspirators verbally, and then presented all the 
arms, whose possession he had that minute assumed, to Brown. 
As soon as possible thereafter, says Mr. Sanborn, "the busi- 
ness of the Kansas Committee was put in such shape that its 
responsibility for the arms in Brown's possession should no 
longer fetter his friends in aiding his main design." ^2 When 
the denouement finally came, however, the public and press 
did not take a very favorable view of the transaction ; it was too 
difhcult to distinguish between George L. Stearns, the benefac- 
tor of the Kansas Committee, and George L. Stearns, the Chair- 
man of that Committee. Again, there appear to have been 
some dissatisfied members of the Kansas Committee who re- 
mained uninformed of the transfer of the arms until the whole 
thing came out, and they resented the charge of having aided 
Brown in his Virginia foray. Mr, Sanborn admits that "it is 
still a little difificult to explain this transaction concerning the 
arms without leaving a suspicion that there was somewhere a 
breach of trust." ^^ 

To a recent historian, Rear-Admiral F. E. Chadwick, this 
incident is "not a pleasant story ;"''4 he accuses the Kansas 
Committee and Dr. Howe of "duplicity" and "gross prevari- 
cation," the latter for writing to Senator Wilson on May 12: 

^ " I understand perfectly your meaning. No countenance has been 
given to Brown for any operation outside of Kansas by the Kansas 
Committee;'' and three days later: " Prompt measures have been 
taken and will resolutely be followed up to prevent any such mon- 
strous perversion of a trust as would be the application of means 
raised for the defence of Kansas to a purpose which the subscribers 
of the fund would disapprove and vehemently condemn." 

Technically, the Committee has a valid defence. Doubtless 
in the business world, and especially according to the stand- 



342 JOHN BROWN • 

ards of certain large industrial concerns of late years, the Com- 
mittee's stratagem is quite defensible as a simple way out of 
a trying difficulty, and an easy method of obtaining for Brown 
the desired arms. It cannot be denied that frankness and 
straightforwardness would have dictated the notifying of Sen- 
ator Wilson that the arms had passed into the possession of 
individual members of the Committee, which would not there- 
after be responsible for them or the uses made of them. As 
it is, there was no actual recall of the arms from Brown what- 
ever, as Senator Wilson was permitted to believe, save a purely 
nominal one. No one, says Mr. Sanborn, suggested that they 
should pass out of Brown's actual possession. ^^ It is one of 
those unpleasant episodes which so often happen when the 
business of individuals and of organizations to which they be- 
long becomes intertwined. Had Mr. Stearns not been Chair- 
man of the Kansas Committee, but a mere outsider, no allega- 
tion of breach of trust could have lain in the premises. But 
even this admirable man sometimes split delicate hairs in dis- 
cussing what actually happened at this period. Thus he later 
appeared before the Mason Committee and testified that John 
Brown had not asked for the two hundred Sharp's rifles in 
January, 1857, — the time that Brown was beseeching the Na- 
tional Kansas Committee and the Boston members of the 
Massachusetts State Committee to fit out his proposed "vol- 
unteer regular company" with arms! It must be pointed out, 
too, that the decision of the little Boston group, after giving 
Brown the five hundred dollars and arms, in 1858, to know no 
more of his plans, is the first sign of the effort to evade respon- 
sibility which became so apparent after the raid. They had en- 
couraged him to attack slavery in the mountains of the South, 
giving him money and arms to do it with, and sanctioned his 
going ahead , — only they said : ' ' Do not tell us the details of it. " 
This attitude inevitably suggests that of those modern corpora- 
tion directors who are perfectly aware that their agents, the 
executives of the company, are using the funds of the stock- 
holders illegally, but salve their consciences by never broach- 
ing the matter in or out of the board-room, or examining the 
accounts. It further lays them open to the criticism of being 
ready to help others to assail a wrong, but of being themselves 
unwilling to take the full consequences of their acts. 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 343 

As for the arms themselves, they were at this time in Ohio.^* 
After Brown had brought them to Springdale, they were 
shipped from West Liberty, with the two hundred revolvers 
bought by Mr. Stearns, by freight to John Brown, Jr., at Con- 
neaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio. By him they had been trans- 
ported to, and concealed in, the village of Cherry Valley, where 
they were stored in the furniture ware-rooms of King Brothers. 
Here, for safety's sake, they were covered by a lot of ready- 
made cofhns awaiting sale. The visit of a tax assessor made 
John Brown, Jr., nervous about them, but the arms remained 
here until early in May, when, by his father's directions, they 
were moved by night to the barn of a farmer named William 
Coleman, in the adjoining township of Wayne, who helped 
him to build by night a little store-room in his haymow. Some 
of the arms and the powder were for a time in the sugar-house 
of E. Alexander Fobes, a brother-in-law of John Brown, Jr. 
From here they were moved in 1859 to the scene of action. On 
May I, 1858, John Brown, Jr., wrote to his father that he 
had been examining the arms, and that he had them "nearly 
all packed and ready to start on Monday next should nothing 
happen." He had examined the smaller "articles of freight," 
and found that the oil on the locks and elsewhere had become 
"so gummy" as to render the arms useless until thoroughly 
overhauled and cleaned." 

Rejoicing in his ownership of the arms and his fresh money- 
supply. Brown swallowed his disappointment over the post- 
ponement of the raid and went straight to North Elba, where 
he was on June 9. This time there was no indecision about 
his movements or hesitancy about returning to Kansas. He 
was in Cleveland by June 20, for on the next day he called his 
scattered followers together and, notifying them of the deci- 
sion of the Boston friends, gave them what money he could 
and bade them be true to the cause. ^^ A general break-up 
ensued. Realf, as already related, was to go to New York and 
watch Forbes; Owen went to his brother Jason's at Akron, 
Ohio, while KagI and Tidd left that same day with Brown for 
Kansas by way of Chicago. Leeman and Taylor first went 
with Owen, and then drifted about in Ohio and Illinois, while 
Parsons spent the summer on Fobes's farm, where the arms 
were concealed, and then returned to his home at Byron, Illi- 



344 JOHN BROWN 

nois.^3 Moffet worked his way home to Iowa, after staying for 
some time in Cleveland, while Gill and Stevens went back to 
Springdale on their way to Kansas, where they later joined 
John Brown's little company. To Cook was assigned the diffi- 
cult and responsible task of going to Harper's Ferry to live as 
a spy in the enemy's country, an outpost stealthily to recon- 
noitre the vicinity. This he did successfully, arriving there 
on June 5, 1858.^0 

By this delay and change of plan, Brown lost five of his 
twelve followers who took part in the Chatham convention. 
Parsons had lost his zeal for the venture on learning of the plan 
to attack the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. ^^ He had not calcu- 
lated on a direct assault on the United States Government, 
and so when the call to rejoin Brown reached him at Council 
Bluffs in 1859, where he was, en route to Pike's Peak, he heeded 
the admonition of his mother which came with it. "They are 
bad men," she wrote him. "You have got away from them, 
now keep away from them." Mr. Parsons has an excellent war 
service to his credit as a commissioned officer, and is still living 
at Salina, Kansas. Moffet, too, was probably disaffected, 
though it was claimed for him by his sister, in i860, that "ob- 
ligations from which he could not be released " prevented his 
rejoining Brown. Of his own failure to reach Harper's Ferry, 
George B. Gill, who also survives, says: ^2 

" I was on my way to Harper's Ferry at the time of the premature 
blow and apparent failure. I had been in correspondence with Kagi 
and knew the exact time to be on hand and was on my way to the 
cars when the thrilling news came that the blow had been struck. 
Of course I went no further. I had been sick much of the spring and 
summer previous and in my last interview with the old man I would 
not promise to follow him farther, being worn out physically and not 
feeling any more sanguine of the necessary funds being raised, and 
having been east the previous year on a wild goose chase I could not 
see the necessity of going further at present." 

Realf, on his trip to England, underwent a sea-change, and 
after the raid was charged with treachery. Richardson, the 
colored man, did not reappear from Canada. But Cook, Lee- 
man, Tidd, Owen Brown, Stevens, Taylor and Kagi followed 
their leader to Harper's Ferry, whence only Tidd and Owen 
Brown returned. 



A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 345 

In company, then, with two of the faithful ones, Brown 
reached Chicago on June 22; on June 25 two of his later bio- 
graphers met him under these conditions in Lawrence: "We 
were at supper, on the 25th of June, 1858, at a hotel in Law- 
ence, Kansas. A stately old man, with a flowing white beard, 
entered the room and took a seat at the public table. I im- 
mediately recognized in the stranger, John Brown. Yet many 
persons who had previously known him did not penetrate 
his patriarchal disguise." Thus wrote Redpath.^' The whole 
aspect of Brown was now changed; the long gray beard famil- 
iar to all the world at the time of his execution concealed the 
sharpness of his chin, the thin lips and the resolute, sharp line 
of the mouth. But there was no change in the man. On Mon- 
day, June 28, he was off for southern Kansas, where he reap- 
peared disguised not only as to his physiognomy but as to his 
name. Thereafter there was a new border chief in southeast- 
ern Kansas, — Shubel Morgan. 



CHAPTER X 
SHUBEL MORGAN, WARDEN OF THE MARCHES 

The Kansas to which John Brown returned in June, 1858, had 
made distinct progress toward the realization of the hopes 
of the Free State party. In October, 1857, it had captured 
the Territorial Legislature, which met on January 4, 1858, but 
it had abstained from voting at the election of December 21 
on the Lecompton Constitution, because the only alternative 
was to vote ''for the Constitution with slavery" or "for the 
Constitution with no slavery." But the Constitution with- 
out slavery made that institution perpetual within the State, 
by providing for the maintenance of the slaves then in the 
Territory, and their offspring, and specifically declaring that 
slaves were property. The " Constitution-with-slavery " pro- 
vision was carried by 6266 votes to 569, owing to the absten- 
tion of the Free State men; 2720 of the affirmative votes were 
proved to be fraudulent. Since the election did not turn upon 
the Constitution itself, but upon the issue whether the Con- 
stitution with or without slavery should be adopted, the Free 
State men. Lane in particular, had, as already pointed out, 
induced the Acting Governor, Stanton, to call a special session 
of the Legislature for December 7, which promptly ordered 
the submission of the entire Lecompton Constitution to the 
people. When this was done, on January 4, the pro-slavery 
men abstained from the polls. No less than 10,226 votes were 
cast against the Constitution, 138 for it with slavery, and 24 
for it without slavery. Both parties joined In the election for 
officers under the Lecompton Constitution, the Free State 
men winning. Of the 6875 pro-slavery votes, 2458 subse- 
quently proved to be illegal; ^ the Free State men chose 42 
out of 53 members of the Legislature. George W. Smith, 
Free State, was elected Governor. On January 5, the old 
Topeka Legislature met again to receive a message from its 
Governor, Robinson, asking that the old rump State organiza- 
tion be kept up, although the Territorial Legislature was now 



SHUBEL MORGAN , 347 

safely Free State. In his message to this body, the new Acting 
Governor, Denver, who had succeeded Stanton, recommended 
that all legislation of importance be deferred until Congress 
should act upon the Lecompton Constitution. 

When that document was submitted to Congress by the 
President, on February 2, that body had received a petition 
from all the State officers chosen under this Constitution, ask- 
ing that it be defeated. While Brown was collecting his funds 
in the East, revealing his Virginia plan to his Boston friends, 
and preparing for the Chatham convention. Congress was 
struggling with this Lecompton issue, which was not decided 
until April 30. During all that period the debate had aroused 
the country, and wrought Congress itself up to a pitch of great 
excitement. Even Stephen A. Douglas, author of the Squat- 
ter Sovereignty theory to which all of Kansas's misfortunes 
were due, opposed the Lecompton Constitution. Finally, Con- 
gress passed a compromise measure known as the English 
bill, which provided that Kansas should be admitted to the 
Union if, on resubmission, a majority of its voters approved 
the Lecompton Constitution. This was emphatically a pro- 
slavery victory. In order to bribe the voters of the State into 
accepting the Constitution that had once been rejected by 
them. Congress offered to give to the new State two sections 
of land in each township for school purposes, seventy-two 
sections for a State university, and ten sections for public 
buildings, in all five and a half million acres; also all the salt 
springs, not exceeding twelve in number, and six sections of 
land with each spring; and, finally, five per cent of all the 
public lands for State roads. No such bribe had ever been 
offered to any other State ; if it should not be accepted, the bill 
required that no new delegates to frame a Constitution 
should be chosen until Kansas had a population equalling the 
ratio of representation required for a member of the House 
of Representatives — then 93,560 people. Kansas was in the 
throes of a discussion of this measure when John Brown 
arrived, for the date set for the vote on the resubmitted Con- 
stitution was August 2. He had, therefore, the satisfaction of 
being in the Territory at this final defeat of the pro-slavery 
forces, when 13,088 votes were cast, 11,300 of them against 
the odious Constitution. Thereafter Kansas was safe. No 



348 JOHN BROWN 

other Constitution was framed until the next year; but the 
defeat of the slavery forces was beyond all dispute and final. ^ 

But if the political outlook in the Territory was favorable 
to the Free State men, there had been in southeastern Kansas, 
particularly in Linn and Bourbon counties, a recrudescence of 
the lawlessness of 1856. Indeed, the whole Territory, as Brown 
entered it, was still ringing with one of the most atrocious 
crimes in the annals of the border warfare, to which reference 
has already been made. Charles A. Hamilton, a graduate of 
the University of Georgia, later a colonel in the Confederate 
army, and a member of an excellent family, had boasted that 
if pro-slavery men could not make headway in the Territory, 
Abolitionists should not live there. Crossing the Missouri 
boundary on May 19, near the Trading Post in Linn County, 
he captured Free State men wherever he found them, on their 
wagons, in the fields, or in their homes, until he had eleven 
reputable citizens, — the Rev. B. L. Reed, W. E. Stilwell, 
Asa Hairgrove, William Hairgrove, Amos Hall, William 
Colpetzer, Michael Robinson, John F. Campbell, Charles 
Snyder, Patrick Ross and Austin Hall. An effort was made 
to capture Eli Snyder, a blacksmith, his brother and a young 
son, Elias Snyder, but they fought too vigorously. Lining up 
his eleven prisoners in a little ravine, Hamilton placed his 
thirty-odd men on the bank above them, and ordered them 
to aim at the prisoners. One of the men, Brockett, who had 
been Pate's lieutenant at the battle of Black Jack, declined 
to obey Hamilton's order and withdrew. At the word of 
command, the others fired at the unflinching Free State men. 
To make sure of their work, the brazen and brutal murderers 
then kicked the prostrate men and finished two of the dying, 
Ross and Amos Hall, by shooting them again. Then they 
made off. The Snyders, lying in the bushes near-by, hearing 
the shooting and groans, were afraid to move lest it might all 
be a ruse. They were finally summoned by Austin Hall, who, 
unwounded, had had presence of mind to fall with the others 
and remain rigid when kicked by a ruffian who wished to 
ascertain if he still breathed. It was found that five men, 
Campbell, Colpetzer, Ross, Stilwell, and Robinson, had been 
killed. The remaining five survived their serious wounds. 

Nothing can be said in defence of this crime. None of the 



SHUBEL MORGAN 349 

eleven had given special reason for Border Ruffian dislike, 
Hamilton thought, perhaps, that by imitating the Pottawa- 
tomie murders of John Brown he could at one blow intimi- 
date southeastern Kansas; perhaps he believed himself the 
agent of the Almighty to exterminate these men. At any rate, 
he, too, killed five, as had Brown, and with as little warning; 
the consequences — the stirring up of the worst kind of bush- 
whacking strife — were in both cases the same.^ 

Soon after the massacre, two hundred Kansans, led by 
Sheriff McDaniel, Colonel R. B. Mitchell and James Mont- 
gomery, marched to West Point, Missouri, from which place 
Hamilton had started. The murderers, however, had timely 
warning of their coming and escaped, Montgomery's advice 
to surround the town before entering it being disregarded.^ 
Although occurring some distance from the river of that name, 
this killing has always been known as the Marais des Cygnes 
Massacre; it inspired Whittier's commemorative poem, "Le 
Marais du Cygne," published in the Atlantic Monthly ior 
September, 1858. In justice to Hamilton it must be stated 
that he and a large number of other pro-slavery settlers, who 
were in Free State eyes inimical to the peace and progress of 
the communities in which they had resided, had been ordered 
by James Montgomery, the Free State leader, to leave their 
homes post-haste and flee to Missouri. The Marais des Cygnes 
Massacre was the revenge for this expulsion, which the ma- 
jority of the Free State settlers considered wholly warranted 
by the careers of those expelled. Hamilton originally headed 
a band of five hundred Missourians. All but Hamilton and his 
ignoble thirty were dissuaded from entering Kansas, or lost 
courage when they reached the Territorial line. There ensued 
after the massacre a week of extreme lawlessness, although 
Federal troops had already been ordered out into Bourbon 
County. Montgomery tried to burn the pro-slavery town of 
Fort Scott, and there were grave conditions, indeed, until 
Governor Denver personally arrived on the scene in June and 
induced both sides to agree to a treaty of peace. Bygones were 
to be bygones. He promised to remove the Federal troops from 
Fort Scott at once; to order a new election for county officials; 
to station militia along the border in order to prevent invasion 
from Missouri; and to suspend the operation of old writs, if 



350 JOHN BROWN 

Montgomery's men and all other armed bodies would with- 
draw from the field. This compact was religiously adhered to 
through the summer and fall. 

James Montgomery was one of the most interesting figures 
of the border warfare. He was thus described in a letter to the 
New York Evening Post in 1858:^ 

"In conversation he talks mildly in a calm, even voice, using the 
language of a cultivated, educated gentleman. His antecedents are 
unexceptionable; he was always a Free State man, although coming 
from a Slave State, where he was noted as a good citizen and for his 
mild, even temperament. In his daily conduct he maintains the 
same character now; but when in action and under fire, he displays 
a daring fearlessness, untiring perseverance, and an indomitable 
energy that has given him the leadership in this border warfare." 

His own cabin was often attacked in days when nobody 
who had caution unbarred his door to a visitor's hail without 
being assured as to the ownership of the voice. ^ His wife was a 
fit companion for a border chieftain. It is related of her that 
she had the indomitable spirit, if not the culture, of her hus- 
band, and that she once said: "I do get plumb tired of being 
shot at, but I won't be druv out." ^ It must not be thought, 
however, that all of Montgomery's neighbors were unanimous 
as to his usefulness; but they always agreed as to his honesty. 
A leader of *' jayhawkers," he had but little respect for man- 
made laws; he met violence with violence, and often could not 
control the excesses of his men. 

The original incentive for Montgomery's taking to the 
brush was the pro-slavery outrages of 1856 in Linn County; 
thereafter his own actions led to frequent efforts to retaliate 
by the pro-slavery men, who feared and hated him more than 
any one else. "His operations," says Andreas,^ "may be 
classed as defensive, preventive and retaliatory, and it is 
doubtless true that he did many things which, when judged 
outside of their immediate and remote causes and connections, 
would not stand the test of the moral code." Yet after it 
was all over, and the Civil War at hand, he was made Colo- 
nel of the Third Kansas Volunteer Infantry, later Colonel of 
the Second South Carolina (Negro) Regiment, with which he 
fought in Florida; and during the Price raid into Missouri, he 
was Colonel of the Sixth Kansas Militia Regiment. Both in 



SHUBEL MORGAN 351 

Kansas and in the South, as a regimental commander, he 
aroused criticism by his ruthless destruction and plundering 
of captured towns and villages, partly in obedience to orders.^ 
In Kansas, in 1858, one of the deeds which made him conspicu- 
ous was an attack on part of Captain G. T, Anderson's com- 
pany of the First United States Cavalry, April 21, when he 
and seven other men were overtaken by it. Taking to the 
timber, Montgomery opened fire, killing one soldier and 
injuring Captain Anderson and two soldiers, whereupon the 
company fled, to their and their commander's disgrace, Cap- 
tain Anderson being forced to resign from the service in con- 
sequence.^*' Another exploit was Montgomery's destruction 
of the ballot-boxes, in imitation of similar Missouri outrages, 
at the election for Governor under the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion, January 4, 1858, because he did not sympathize with the 
decision of a part of the Free State party to vote under the 
Constitution.!^ That his neighbors might not vote, he broke 
the ballot-box and scattered the ballots, for which he was 
indicted but never tried. Many other acts of violence were 
rightly or wrongly laid at his door, chief among the former 
being the attempt to burn Fort Scott, early in June, 1858. 
Governor Denver officially charged him with this, and w^ith 
firing indiscriminately into the houses of the town, and ex- 
pressed his astonishment at meeting men fully aware of this 
"most outrageous attempt at arson and murder," who yet 
"uphold and justify Montgomery and his band in their con- 
duct." Of the ravaged district in which Montgomery oper- 
ated, Governor Denver, after his personal tour of inspection, 
thus wrote to Lewis Cass, Secretary of State: 

"From Fort Scott to the crossing of the Osage river, or Marais 
des Cygnes as it is there called, a distance of about 30 miles, we 
passed through a country almost depopulated by the depredations 
of the predatory bands under Montgomery, presenting a scene of 
desolation such as I never expected to have witnessed in any coun- 
try inhabited by American citizens. . . . The accounts given of the 
flight of the people were heart-rending in the extreme." 

Governor Denver, throughout his official correspondence, 
was extremely hostile to Montgomery, while not failing to say 
that, however great the outrages he committed, there was no 



352 JOHN BROWN 

excuse for taking revenge on Innocent persons, as Hamilton 
had done on the Marais des Cygnes.^^ 

To this guerrilla Montgomery, to the scene of his opera- 
tions and the crimes of Hamilton, Brown's mind turned as 
soon as he arrived In Lawrence. The numerous outrages upon 
individuals were a close parallel to conditions as he found 
them around Lawrence when he first entered the Territory In 
1855. Montgomery was obviously a border chieftain after his 
own heart, and, besides, In his district was the only possible 
opportunity for active service. " Fort Scott," wrote the Law- 
rence correspondent of the Chicago Tribune on April 4, 1858,^2 
"is the only place within the Territory where the Border 
Ruffians now show their teeth." Their worst specimens, he 
reported, were In refuge there. Fugit, the murderer of Hoppe, 
lived In the neighborhood. Clarke, who killed Barber In 1855, 
was then Register of the Land Office at Fort Scott. Eli Moore, 
one of W. A. Phillips's murderers, and one of those who shot 
R, P. Brown at Easton, "has his rendezvous in the same 
vicinity." Brockett was clerk in the Land Office. Most of 
such of Titus's ruffians as had not gone to Nicaragua with 
Walker were also there. These became the leaders of immi- 
grants from southwestern Missouri. The land was rich and 
desirable. The Free State men persisted in coming In, being 
then two to one, and located chiefly in the northern half of 
the county. Ever since the preceding fall, the correspondent 
reported, they had been harassed and plundered by the pro- 
slavery men, to worry them out, by burning cabins, stealing 
cattle and horses, and making false arrests, — all so that they 
should not dominate the region. It was to end this that Ham- 
ilton and his followers had been ordered by Montgomery 
to leave the Territory Immediately, with the result that 
Hamilton later conceived and carried out his horrible plan 
of revenge. 

Redpath and Hinton stated that on Sunday, June 27, when 
they again met Brown In the hotel in Lawrence, he asked 
them about the movements and character of Montgomery, as 
well as of the trend of political developments, !■* and informed 
them that he would start south the next day to see his rela- 
tives and Montgomery. To Mr. Sanborn, Brown sent, on 
Monday, the 28th, the following unsigned letter: ^^ 



SHUBEL MORGAN 353 

Lawrence, Kansas Ter. 28tii June 1858. 
F. B. Sanborn Esq; and Dear Friends at Boston, Worcester and 
Peterboro. 

I reached Kansas with friends on the 26^'^ inst; came here last 
night, and leave here today; for the neighborhood of late troubles. It 
seem the troubles are not over yet. Can write you but few words 
now. Hope to write you more fully after a while. I do hope you 
will be in earnest now to carry out as soon as possible the measure 
proposed in Mr. Sanborn's letter inviting me to Boston this last 
Spring. I hope there will be no delay of that matter. Can you send 
me by Express; Care E. B. Whitman Esqr half a Doz; or a full Doz 
whistles such as I described? at once? 

Write me till further advised, under sealed envelope directing 
stamped ones to Rev. S. L. Adair, Osawatomie Kansas Ter. 

Yours in Truth 

On July 9, John Brown, or Shubel Morgan, as he now 
called himself, wrote to his son ^^ from the "log-cabin of the 
notorious Captain James Montgomery, whom I deem a very 
brave and talented officer, and, w^hat is infinitely more, a very 
intelligent, kind gentlemanly and most excellent man and 
lover of freedom." While Brown visited Montgomery on 
other occasions, he was oftenest at the house of Augustus 
Wattles, near Moneka, to which locality the latter had re- 
moved with his family from the neighborhood of Lawrence. 
But the headquarters of Shubel Morgan's company were on 
the claim of Eli Snyder, the brave blacksmith, and not many 
hundred yards from the very scene of the Hamilton Massacre. 
Half a mile from the Missouri line, this hill, now densely 
wooded, offered in 1858 a beautiful view of the surrounding 
country. Brown arrived there about the 1st of July, with Eli 
Snyder, coming directly from the home of Augustus Wattles. 
Elias, the boy, drove back w^ith Brown to Wattles's for his 
belongings, 1^ — blankets, provisions, cooking utensils, cloth- 
ing and a good supply of arms and ammunition. Kagi and 
Tidd were with Brown throughout his stay, Gill and Stevens 
arriving later in the summer, by way of Iowa. The first camp, 
in which they lived for four weeks, was located between 
Snyder's house and his blacksmith-shop, near a fine spring, 
which still wells up under the farmhouse now standing on the 
site of the camp. Here, true to his custom, John Brown drew 
up "Articles of Agreement for Shubel Morgan's Company." * 

* See Appendix. 



354 JOHN BROWN 

On July 20, Shubel Morgan began a long letter to Mr. 
Sanborn and the other Boston friends, which he could not 
finish until August 6. In it he gave this description of con- 
ditions in the vicinity of the claim : ^^ 

"Deserted farms: & dwellings lie in all directions for some miles 
along the line; & the remaining inhabitants watch every appearance 
of persons moveing about with anxious jealousy; & vigilance. Four 
of the persons wounded or attacked on that occasion* are staying 
WITH me. The Blacksmith Snyder who fought the murderers with 
his brother; & son are of the number. Old Mr. Hargrove who was 
teribly wounded at the same time is another. The blacksmith re- 
turned here with me; & intends to bring back his family on to his 
claim within Two or Three days. A constant fear of new troubles 
seems to prevail on both sides the line ; & on both sides are companies 
of armed men. Any little affair may open the quarrel afresh. Two 
murders; & cases of robery are reported of late I have also a man 
with me who fled from his family; & farm; in Missouri but a day 
or Two since; his life being threatened on account of being accused 
of informing Kansas men of the whereabouts of one of the mur- 
derers who was lately taken; & brought to this side. I have con- 
cealed the fact of my presence pretty much; lest \t should tend to 
create excitement ; but it Is getting leaked out ; & will soon be known 
to all. As I am not here to seek or to secure revenge ; I do not mean 
to be the first to reopen the quarrel. How soon it may be raised 
against me I cannot say; nor am I over anxious. A portion of my 
men are in other neighborhoods We shall soon be in great want of a 
small amount in a Draft or Drafts on New York, to feed us. We 
cannot work /or ivages; & provisions are not easily obtained on the 
frontier. . . . I may continue here for some time." 

A significant passage of this letter is the following comment 
on a man who ever since, unless we except Charles Robinson, 
has been Brown's bitterest critic, — and still is: " I believe all 
Ji07iest, sensible Free State men in Kansas consider George 
Washington Brown's 'Herald of Freedom' one of the most mis- 
chievous, traitorous publications in the whole country." On 
August 6 he added that he had been down with the ague since 
July 23, and had no safe way of getting his letter off. Under 
date of Moneka, August 9, 1858, Brown wrote to his son, 
John Brown, Jr., this valuable review of the situation, here 
printed for the first tlme:^^ 

"Your letter with enclosures, exactly those I wanted, of the 23rd 
of July is received. I have been spending some weeks on the Mis- 
* The Hamilton Massacre. 



SHUBEL MORGAN 355 

souri line on the same quarter section where the horrible murders 
of May 19th were committed. Confidence seems to be greatly re- 
stored amongst the Free State men in consequence, several of whom 
returned to their deserted claims. The Election of the 2nd Inst, 
passed off quietly on this part of the Line. Its general result in the 
Territory you are probably advised of. Our going onto the hne 
was done with the utmost quiet & so far as I am concerned under an 
assumed name to avoid creating any excitement. But the matter 
was in some measure leaked out and over into Missouri. Some 
believed the report of O. B.'s [Old Brown's] being directly on the 
Line and in the immediate vicinity of West Point, but the greater 
part on the Kansas side did not believe it. In Missouri the fact 
was pretty generally understood, & the idea of having such a neigh- 
bour improving a Claim (as was the case) right on a conspicuous 
place and in full view for miles, around in Missouri, produced a 
ferrnent there which you can better imagine than I can describe. 
Which of the passions most predominated, fear or rage, I do not 
pretend to say. We had a number of visitors from there, some of 
whom we believed at the time and still believe were spies. One 
avowed himself a pro-slavery man after I had told him my suspi- 
cions of himself & of those who came before him, but at the same time 
assured him that notwithstanding he was in a perfect nest of the 
most ultra Abolitionists, not a hair of his head should fall so long as 
we knew of no active mischief he had been engaged in. When I told 
him my suspicions of him he seemed to be much agitated, though 
to all appearance a man of great self-possession and courage — I 
recited to him briefly the story of the Missouri invasions, threaten- 
ings, bullyings, boastings, driving off, beating, robbing, burning out 
and murdering of Kansas people, telling him pro-slavery men of Mis- 
souri had begun and carried steadily forward in this manner with 
most miserably rotten and corrupt pro-slavery Administrations to 
back them up, shield and assist them while carrying on their Dev- 
ilish work. I told him Missouri people along the Line might have 
perfect quiet if they honestly desired it, and further, that if they 
chose War they would soon have all they might any of them care 
for. I gave him the most powerful Abolition lecture of which I am 
capable, having an unusual gift of utterance for me; gave him some 
dinner and told him to go back and make a full report and then 
sent him off. Got no such visits afterwards. I presume he will not 
soon forget the old Abolitionist 'mit de' white beard on. I gave 
him also a full description of my views of a Full Blooded Abolition- 
ist and told him who were the rea/ w?gger-^/ca/er5 &c. . . ." 

The postscript to this letter, longer than the missive itself, 
begins thus: 

"P. S. Our family interest in Kansas affairs is so often misstated 
by those who do not know and oftener do not care to tell the truth 



356 JOHN BROWN 

that Mr. Wattles had determined for some time past to bring out 
our history from time [to time] in a kind of series as he could collect 
facts, and instantly called on me for them. I have consented to 
supply them, & have commenced." 

He then directs his son to collect material for that sketch 
of his career: "A brief history of John Brown, otherwise 
(old B) and his family: as connected With Kansas; By one 
who knows," to which reference was made in an earlier chap- 
ter.* Brown began this never finished autobiographical sketch 
at Wattles's house, ^o from which he wrote as above. 

As soon as he reached the Snyder claim, Brown began to 
build a small fortification of stone and wood for defence 
against the Missourians,^! which speedily became magnified 
by popular report into a "Fort Snyder." There is no doubt, 
too, that he commenced negotiations for the purchase of the 
claim, and this has given rise to a long controversy in Kansas 
as to whether he was or was not the owner or an owner of this 
land at one time. The facts seem to be that Snyder never per- 
fected his claim to the land ; that when Brown arrived there, 
he did begin negotiations with Snyder, which must have been 
not for the land, but for the squatter's claim to it; that sub- 
sequently Snyder changed his mind and Brown's effort to pur- 
chase came to an end, giving rise to charges of bad faith 
against Snyder. When the land was disposed of by the gov- 
ernment, the name of neither Brown nor Snyder figured in the 
transaction, the government selling 180.84 acres for $225.80 to 
C. C. Scadsall (generally called Hadsall).22 Snyder appears 
to have offered the place to Hadsall, after accepting money 
from Brown in part payment. Hadsall, it is reported, declared 
that when he told Brown of Snyder's offer, 

"Brown showed the only anger that Hadsall had ever witnessed, 
but walked away without saying much. Shortly after he told Had- 
sall that he was content for him to have the place, but he, Brown, 
wanted to reserve all privileges of military occupation at his plea- 
sure. It seemed that Brown had not made all his payments to Sny- 
der, who in a way not unusual to him was trying to get some money 
from Hadsall. That day Brown wrote out and signed a bill of sale 
to Hadsall and signed it in his own name, and Snyder, after turning 
over to Hadsall his three yoke of oxen, cows, wagons, and plows, 

* See ante, page 86. 



SHUBEL MORGAN 357 

received six hundred dollars from Hadsall and added his quit-claim 
to the bill of sale. Hadsall lost this precious bit of paper during the 
war." -^ 

John Brown made, early in August, an attempt to get the 
revolvers sent to him in 1856 by the National Kansas Com- 
mittee, which had been in Lawrence ever since that time; for 
them, as he had told Horace White, he himself was not willing 
to ask, when in Lawrence. On August 3 he wrote from Mo- 
neka to William Hutchinson, asking for the names of those to 
whom the revolvers had been loaned subject to his recalling 
them. This information Mr. Hutchinson cheerfully gave, 
but it does not appear that Brown ever obtained any of these 
weapons. 2* For an interesting incident of the stay with 
Snyder, we have the doughty blacksmith's own narrative: " 

"During the time that Brown was at my place (1858), he wished 
me to take a short trip into Missouri and I agreeing, Brown took an 
old surveyor's compass and chain and he and I followed down along 
the river, while Kagi and Tidd took the road to Butler. They pre- 
tended to be looking for situations to teach a school. We were all to 
meet at Pattenville, but not to appear to know each other. Brown 
and I were ostensibly surveying. On meeting at Pattenville we had 
an opportunity to come to an understanding to meet again at a 
clump of trees on a certain hill. Brown and I took the river and 
when we met again Martin White's house was half a mile east of us. 
Brown had a small field glass which I asked him to loan me, as I had 
seen some one near the house that I took to be Martin White, whom 
I knew; having heard him address a meeting at West Point a few 
days after the burning of Osawatomie, when Clarke was raising a 
force to drive and burn out Free State men between there and Fort 
Scott. At that time White had just returned from accompanying 
Reid and I heard him describe how he killed Frederick Brown, — 
making the motion of lowering a gun. Brown adjusted the glass and 
looking I could recognize Martin White reading a book as he sat in 
a chair in the shade of a tree. I handed the glass to Brown and 
asked him to look and he said he also recognized him saying: — ' I 
declare that is Martin White.' For a few minutes nothing was said 
when I remarked ' Suppose you and I go down and see the old man 
and have a talk with him.' 'No, no, I can't do that,' said Brown. 
Kagi said, 'let Snyder and me go.' Capt. Brown said: 'Go if you 
wish to but don't you hurt a hair of his head; but if he has any 
slaves take the last one of them.' Kagi said: 'Snyder and I want 
to go without instructions, or not at all.' Therefore as Brown was 
unwilling that Martin White, who had murdered his son, should 
receive any harm we did not go near him. It was thus shown that \ 
John Brown had no revenge to gratify." 



358 JOHN BROWN 

There is other evidence to this effect; Brown never per- 
mitted any attack to be made on White, tried to head off his 
sons when they were on White's trail, and repeatedly stated 
that he did not wish for White's death, — an attitude which 
cannot be too highly commended. To James Hanway he once 
said : ^^ 

"People mistake my objects. I would not hurt one hair of his 
[White's] head. I would not go one inch to take his life; I do not 
harbour the feelings of revenge. / act from a principle. My aim and 
object is to restore human rights." 

Brown's obstinate ague or malarial fever, to which he 
referred in his letter of August 9 to his family, did not yield 
because of his sojourn with Augustus Wattles. About the 
middle of August, he was taken by William Partridge to the 
Rev. Mr. Adair's hospitable cabin at Osawatomie," and there, 
in a corner of the living-room, he lay for fully four weeks, 
nursed with the greatest fidelity by the devoted Kagi and 
the Adair family. On September 9 he wrote to John Brown, 
Jr., 28 that since August 9, the date of his last letter, he had 
been ''entirely laid up with Ague and Chill fever. Was never 
more sick." As the Adairs look back upon it, the disease 
appears to them now to have been a malarial or typhoid 
fever; they were often asked by visitors who the sick man in 
the sitting-room was, but they knew always how to describe 
him by other than his right name.^^ Dr. Gilpatrick, of Osawa- 
tomie, was called in to aid the patient. Finally, on September 
23, Kagi was able to report to his sister his arrival in Law- 
rence, after being 

"compelled to lay off at Osawatomie for a month, during which 
time by my taking care of him, [Brown], I was down but only for a 
week. . . . B. has not quite recovered. . . . Things are now quiet. 
I am collecting arms, etc. belonging to J. B. so that he may command 
them at any time." ^° 

On September 13, Brown notified his wife that he was still 
very weak and wrote only with great labor; even on the 
nth of October, he had to tell her that he had been "very 
feeble," but had improved a great deal during the last week. 
" I can now see," he added, "no good reason why I should not 



SHUBEL MORGAN 359 

be located nearer home as soon as I can collect the means for 
defraying expenses." ^^ 

John Brown probably reached Lawrence with Kagi late in 
September, and was there again on October 14, 15 and 16. 
Martin F. Conway testified before the Mason Committee ^^ 
that he saw Brown there twice in the summer and fall, and 
discussed with him his relations to the National Kansas Com- 
mittee, after Brown's illness in southern Kansas, but he errone- 
ously places the date of the first visit as late in July or early in 
August, when Brown was on Snyder's claim. A receipt given 
by Mr. Conway to John Brown for documents put in his pos- 
session is still in existence, and fixes the date for the second 
interview as October 15, 1858.^^ As to the first interview, 
Conway testified that it took place at Mrs. Killan's hotel, and 
that Brown declared that he was greatly in need and had 
received an order from the National Kansas Executive Com- 
mittee for a large sum of money which he had never been able 
to obtain. By "order" Brown meant, if he used that word, 
the resolution of the National Kansas Committee of January 
24, 1857, giving him the five thousand dollars, of which he had 
received only so small a part, and also "such arms and sup- 
plies as the Committee may have" up to an amount sufficient 
to provide for one hundred men, besides a "letter of appro- 
bation." In the summer of 1858, John Brown received from 
George L. Stearns a package of promissory notes which had 
been given by Kansas farmers to the National Kansas Com- 
mittee in exchange for food-supplies or aid of one kind or 
another. Mr. Stearns, as in the case of the Brown rifles 
and revolvers, had advanced large sums for this purpose to 
the Massachusetts State Committee, and was given these 
notes as security for his advances. ^^ Some of these he now 
sent to Brown, who proceeded to collect on them for his imme- 
diate needs. He told Mr. Conway that, 

"the National Kansas Committee had passed a resolution some- 
time before upon which he based a right to act himself as agent for 
that Committee in the Territory in the collection of debts due it, 
and as Mr. Whitman did not seem to satisfy him in that business 
he had taken it upon himself to make collections. . . . He claimed 
to have received a commission, and, as a result of his labors he 
produced a package of papers, which he said were promissory notes 



36o JOHN BROWN 

from parties in the Territory, who had received provisions and cloth- 
ing from this Committee during the troubles in 1856. They had en- 
gaged to pay for them and they had given these notes, and he had 
got them, and he came to me to ask a favor that I would take these 
documents and put them in my safe and keep them subject to his 
order." ^^ 

To this Mr. Conway added that he had signed the receipt 
written for him by Kagi, which fixes the date of this trans- 
action. Apparently, Brown collected on these notes several 
hundred dollars. He also receipted on October 16, at Law- 
rence, for goods received from the National Kansas Commit- 
tee, signing as its agent. ^^ 

In the use of this signature John Brown undoubtedly went 
too far, and his authority to do so was sharply denied by 
H. B. Hurd, the Secretary of the National Kansas Committee, 
on October 26, 1858, when Mr. Hurd wrote to Colonel E. B. 
Whitman : 

"Capt. John Brown has no authority to take, receive, collect or 
transfer any notes or accounts belonging to the National Kansas 
Committee nor has he ever had. Nor will any such dealing be recog- 
nized or sanctioned by our Committee. We wish you to hold all per- 
sons responsible who undertake to retain or deal with such notes 
and accounts. You will recollect that you were given full authority 
to act in reference to said notes & accounts including authority to 
transfer the same by assignment. This authority has never been 
revoked or given to any other person. All the papers that Mr. Brown 
has from us are a copy of the Resolutions passed in the New York 
Meeting certified by me, and an order for some small arms & tents 
that were at Lawrence I think about the time B. returned to Kansas 
after you met him at our office in Chicago. He has never been to 
our office since that time nor have we had any communication with 
him since then. I have seen him once since then but only for a few 
minutes & then nothing was said or done about the matter above 
referred to.'"' 

But there are strong reasons why this error of judgment 
should not be charged up against Brown as a moral delin- 
quency. The relations of the National Committee and the 
Massachusetts Committee were inextricably mixed in Kansas, 
where E. B. Whitman acted at this time as agent for both 
Committees; Brown had received the notes from Mr. Stearns 
with directions to collect on them ; Mr. Whitman w^as not to 
be found when Brown tried to get at him, and finally he 



SHUBEL MORGAN 361 

doubtless conscientiously believed that the resolution In his 
favor of the National Committee gave him sufficient authority. 
This latter point appears from the following letter written 
about this time: ^^ 

Mr. J. T. Cox; 

Sir: — You are hereby notified that I hold claims against the 
National Kansas Committee which are good against them and all 
persons whatever; and that I have authority from said committee to 
take possession, as their Agent, of any supplies belonging to said 
Committee, wherever found. 

You will therefore retain in your hands any monies or accounts 
you may now have in your custody, by direction of said Committee 
or any of its Agents, and hold them subject to my call or order, as 
I shall hold you responsible for them, to me as Agent of said Com- 
mittee 

Ottumwa, Oct. 7, 1858 

John Brown 
Agt. Nat. Kan. Com." 

In this, again. Brown quite exceeded the actual wording 
of the New York resolution, which limited the supplies to the 
needs of one hundred men, of which he had received a consid- 
erable portion In 1857 after the vote. Nevertheless, as Mr. 
Sanbornrecords,^^" the Massachusetts Committee , . . stood 
firmly by Brown" In the "lively dispute In Kansas" excited 
by his action. 

"They had collected much money, had expended It judiciously, 
and had allowed a generous Individual, their chairman, to place in 
their hands more money, for which he was willing to wait without 
payment until the property of the Committee could be turned into 
cash; then, to give him all the security in its power, the Committee 
had made over this property to him, with no restriction as to what he 
should do with it ; and Mr. Stearns had chosen to give It to Brown." 

William F. M. Arny, another agent of the National Kansas 
Committee, testified to seeing Brown in Lawrence several 
times during the summer and fall of 1858,'''* and Brown on one 
of these occasions spent a day or two at his home, when they 
discussed, In general terms. Brown's plan for attacking slav- 
ery elsewhere than In Kansas. It must have been on one of 
these visits, too, that Colonel William A. Phillips had the 
third of those Interviews with Brown which he described at 



362 JOHN BROWN 

length in the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1879, and ap- 
parently erroneously placed in the year 1859. To him, on this 
occasion, Brown set forth his views on the slavery question at 
great length, first sketching the history of American slavery 
from its beginnings. He said to Phillips: 

"And now we have reached a point where nothing but war can 
settle the question. Had they [the slavery men] succeeded in Kan- 
sas, they would have gained a power that would have given them 
permanently the upper hand, and it would have been the death knell 
of republicanism in America. They are checked, but not beaten. 
They never intend to relinquish the machinery of this government 
into the hands of the opponents of slavery. It has taken them more 
than half a century to get it and they know its significance too well 
to give it up. If the Republican party elect its president next year, 
there will be war. The moment they are unable to control, they will 
go out, and as a rival nation along-side they will get the countenance 
and aid of the European nations, until American republicanism and 
freedom are overthrown." 

To Phillips, Brown spoke of the opportunity and achieve- 
ments of Spartacus, and suggested that something similar 
might happen. To this Phillips objected that the American 
negroes were a "peaceful, domestic, inoffensive race; in all 
their sufferings they seemed to be incapable of resentment 
or reprisal." Brown's reply was quick and sharp: "You have 
not studied them right, and you have not studied them long 
enough. Human nature is the same everywhere." 

In connection with the National Kansas Committee's notes, 
Brown visited other places besides Ottumwa, where his letter 
to Mr. Cox shows him to have been on October 7. It is estab- 
lished that he visited Emporia on this same business, and this 
is as far west as he is known to have gone during his stay in 
the Territory. ^^ On October 11 he was again in Osawatomie, 
as already recorded, and on October 15 and 16 in Lawrence, 
when he returned for a day or two to the South; for Kagi 
records in the Tribune his and Brown's being at Osawato- 
mie on October 25. According to this letter, Brown went up 
from Linn County on Friday, October 22, bringing news that 
Montgomery had forcibly entered the court-house at Fort 
Scott on the 21st and taken possession of the court and of the 
papers of the grand jury, compelled the former to adjourn, 
and destroyed the latter. "He is now in the field," wrote 



SHUBEL MORGAN 363 

Kagi," ready to meet the worst." Of Brown, KagI wrote, "The 
Captain has shown that he can be in the Territory without 
making war. He will now, if necessary, take the field in aid 
of Montgomery." ''^ ^\^q Captain soon returned to the dis- 
turbed districts. There, on the 30th of October, an attempt 
was made to assassinate Montgomery, his wife and children, 
by pro-slavery men, who attacked his cabin at night and fired 
a volley into it.^^ Brown himself was at Augustus Wattles's, 
that night. The occurrence led his men to fortify strongly 
the cabin of Montgomery's mother-in-law, near Montgomery's 
own. Gill, Tidd and Stevens did most of the work, for Brown 
was not yet himself; he aided by indulging in his favorite oc- 
cupation of cooking.*'* On November i, while at Mr. Wat- 
tles's, he wrote two letters to members of his family, describing 
himself as much better in health, "but not very strong yet." 
In both of them he stated, doubtless with the Montgomery 
incident in mind, that "things at this moment look quite 
threatening along the line." *^ 

The Wattles family preserves some interesting recollections 
of these ever- welcome visits of Brown. *^ There was nothing 
of the swashbuckler about him; as quiet in his manner as any 
Quaker, he was ready to do his share of the household drudg- 
ery as soon as he arrived. Reading to the Wattles family 
a newspaper article which excused his bitterness against 
slavery on the ground of his personal injuries, he commented 
indignantly: "It seems strange in a Christian country that 
a man should be called a monomaniac for following the plain 
dictates of our Saviour." To Mrs. Wattles he then said: "I 
can put up with the abuse of my enemies, but the excuses of 
my friends are more than I like to bear." 

November was, in the main, a quiet month for Brown and 
his men. Besides building the Montgomery fort, theirs was 
the frontiersman's life. "Sometimes," records Mr. Gill,*^ of 
his own and Kagi's activities, "one had the ague, sometimes 
both. Sometimes we fished, sometimes we had our supper and 
beds; at other times we went supperless and took the prairie 
for our bed with the blue arch for our covering." One or the 
other of these men was generally Brown's companion at this 
time. He was not drawn to Tidd, and Stevens worried him 
because the ex-soldier would not take Brown's orders except 



364 JOHN BROWN 

in situations in which it was a captain's right to command. 
It was not in Stevens's nature to be uniformly submissive. 
Once, it is related by Mr. Gill, Stevens said to Brown: "If 
God controls all things, and dislikes the institution of slav- 
ery, why does He allow it to exist?" "Well," replied Brown, 
floored for once, "that is one question I cannot answer." 

On the 13th of November there was a touch of active ser- 
vice for Shubel Morgan, — the only incident in this month 
which bore out Kagi's statement of his readiness to take the 
field to aid Montgomery. The latter, learning that he had 
been indicted at Paris, Kansas, by a pro-slavery jury, for his 
destruction of the ballot-box in the January previous, marched 
with Brown and his followers upon the town, in search of the 
indictments and warrants. Brown remaining upon the out- 
skirts while Montgomery searched unsuccessfully.^* This raid 
did not improve their standing with the Territorial authori- 
ties. The bias of the acting Governor, Hugh S. Walsh (who 
filled the Governor's chair in the interim between Governor 
Denver's resignation and the arrival of his successor, Samuel 
Medary, the last Territorial Governor), against the Free State 
men was perfectly apparent. He wrote on November 19 to 
Secretary Cass,*^ urging that "a reward of $300 for Mont- 
gomery and $500 for old John Brown, and their delivery at 
the fort, would secure their persons and break up their organ- 
ization or drive them from the Territory." A Captain A. J. 
Weaver, who saw everything through pro-slavery eyes, was 
the chief medium of Walsh's and Medary's information, until 
he accidentally killed himself while bringing into the State 
some Federal arms loaned to Kansas for a militia company 
he had been authorized to raise. ^^ On November 30, Captain 
Weaver and the sheriff, McDaniel, plotted to capture Brown 
and Montgomery ; for Weaver was sure, as he wrote to the act- 
ing Governor, they were preparing "for some infernal diaboli- 
cal act." ^^ Brown, not knowing of this impending visitation, 
left with Gill for Osawatomie on the morning of Wednesday, 
December i. What happened in his absence was thus de- 
scribed by Kagi in the columns of the Lawrence Republican : ^^ 

"When the intended attack became known, the people came in 
from all quarters, for the defence of the little garrison. They came 
unobserved, that the great posse might not become frightened, and 



SHUBEL MORGAN 365 

run before an opportunity was given to whip them handsomely. 
Montgomery heard the news while on the Little Osage, and returned 
with a small force on Thursday morning [December 2]. A portion of 
the Free State men were placed in 'the fort;' Montgomery with the 
remainder placed himself in a good position nearby." 

When the posse took up their march and had approached 
within a few rods of the fort, Whipple notified them that the 
Free State men were prepared to "resist the whole universe, 
with the devil thrown in." The next day, the posse having 
disintegrated, the sherifT had but a handful of men left. These 
commenced stopping and harassing single Free State men on 
the highways. Immediately on hearing of this, Montgomery's 
men moved. Their first act was to send four men to capture 
the sheriff and one R. B. Mitchell, as a checkmate. The latter 
was deprived of his rifle and brace of revolvers. "After a 
wholesome lecture they were released." The sheriff's pathetic 
account of this humiliating experience, properly garbled, is 
still preserved. ^^ It fully bears out a statement of Captain 
Weaver's that "many of the people of the county are intimi- 
dated and afraid — some of old Brown and others of Mont- 
gomery." ^* Thus ended ingloriously one of a number of at- 
tempts to capture Shubel Morgan. 

That energetic citizen wrote to his family on December 2, 
from Osawatomie: " " I have just this moment returned from 
the South where the prospect of quiet was probably never so 
poor," little dreaming that his own camp was at that moment 
being menaced. ' ' Other parts of the Territory are undisturbed 
and may very likely remain so; unless drawn into the quarrel 
of the border counties. I expect to go South again immedi- 
ately. . . ." His health was improving, but "I still get a 
shake pretty often." As to his plans, he said: "When I wrote 
you last I thought the prospect was that I should soon shift 
my quarters somewhat. I still have the same prospect, but 
am wholly at a loss as to the exact time." As soon as he 
.returned South, he took the unexpected step of drafting a 
peace agreement. This was presented to a joint meeting of 
pro-slavery and Free Soil men, which had been called for 
December 6 at Sugar Mound, as a direct result of the humilia- 
tion ptit upon the sheriff after the failure of his attack upon 
Brown. 5^ Montgomery himself was present at the meeting, 



366 JOHN BROWN 

and presented Brown's draft of the treaty. Shubel Morgan 
had urged that this should be signed by a number of the 
prominent men of both parties, but Montgomery found it 
unwise to insist upon this. With sHght verbal alterations, the 
draft was adopted. It was in effect a renewal of the Denver 
agreement.* This had been adhered to until the action of the 
Paris court, together with the attempt to assassinate him and 
the visit of the sheriff to Brown's camp, had convinced Mont- 
gomery that it was abrogated." Not that his men were alto- 
gether blameless during this period; sporadic "jayhawking" 
doubtless went on, despite Montgomery's efforts to control. 
But the new Sugar Mound convention was hardly agreed to 
before it was violated. On Thursday, December i6, Mont- 
gomery again attacked Fort Scott, ^^ in order to release Ben- 
jamin Rice, a Free State settler, who had been arrested on 
November i6, in violation, Montgomery claimed, of the Den- 
ver treaty of June 15. When Rice was not promptly released 
after the Sugar Mound treaty, Montgomery organized, on 
December 14, a force of nearly one hundred men and invited 
John Brown to join it. This he did, together with Kagi and 
Stevens. The night before the attack, there was a conclave 
near Fort Scott as to the comm.and. After much discussion 
it was decided that Montgomery should lead,^^ whereupon 
Brown, with his customary dislike of serving under another, 
took but a small part in the subsequent proceedings, going 
only to the rendezvous. 

It was well that he did not lead. While Rice was being freed 
from his chains in the Free State Hotel, J. H. Little, the owner 
of a store across the way, fired a load of buckshot at Kagi, 
whose heavy overcoat alone saved him from severe injury. 
In the melee which followed, Little was killed and his store 
plundered, some seven thousand dollars' worth of goods being 
stolen. Charles Jennison, subsequently Colonel of the Seventh 
Kansas Cavalry, is credited with being specially active among 
the plunderers, and in some accounts Little's death is laid, 
to Stevens, but unjustly. The whole affair reflects credit upon 
no one ; it at once gave the pro-slavery men the incentive to 
reprisal, and enabled them to obtain from Governor Medary 
the authority to organize militia for the defence of their 

* See Appendix. 



SHUBEL MORGAN 367 

to wn,^° besides prejudicing the new Governor more than ever 
against the Free State leaders. Brown was subsequently 
wrongly charged by Governor Robinson and others with the 
leadership and instigation of the Fort Scott outrage, both of 
which questionable honors belong clearly to Montgomery. 
It must be stated, in the interest of historical accuracy, that 
Montgomery subsequently averred on a number of occasions 
that it was absolutely necessary for him to assume the leader- 
ship, because John Brown was determined to burn the entire 
town of Fort Scott to the ground, whereas Montgomery was 
opposed to violence and bloodshed and was exceedingly vexed 
at the killing of Little. ''^ Governor Medary was so alarmed 
by the attack on Fort Scott that he at once applied for four 
companies of Federal cavalry, and for 600 arms and 10,000 
rounds of ammunition with which to equip some militia. ^^ 

There was in store for him, and for the Governor of Mis- 
souri, an even greater shock. On the 19th of December began 
one of the most picturesque incidents in John Brown's life, 
without which its warfare against slavery would hardly have 
seemed complete. Certainly, nothing could have wound up 
his final visit to Kansas in a more dramatic way. This was 
his incursion into Missouri and the liberation of eleven slaves 
by force of arms. While, as already recorded. Brown had 
taken two slaves out of Kansas to freedom before this whole- 
sale liberation, and was throughout his life an ever-ready 
agent of the Underground Railroad, he was at no time espe- 
cially interested in this piecemeal method of weakening 
slavery. It was to his mind wasting time, when a bold attack 
might liberate five hundred or a thousand slaves. Yet, when 
on December 19, 1858, a slave crossed the Missouri line and 
told to George Gill the story of his impending fate, John 
Brown promptly and heartily closed with his follower's sug- 
gestion that here was just the right opportunity to "carry 
the war into Africa." ^^ 

"As I was scouting down the line," relates Mr. Gill, "I ran 
across a colored man, whose ostensible purpose was the selling of 
brooms. ... I found that his name was Jim Daniels; that his wife, 
self, and babies belonged to an estate and were to be sold at an ad- 
ministrator's sale in the immediate future. His present business was 
not the selling of brooms particularly, but to find help to get himself, 



368 JOHN BROWN 

family, and a few friends in the vicinity away from these threatened 
conditions. Daniels was a fine-looking mulatto. I immediately 
hunted up Brown, and it was soon arranged to go the following 
night and give what assistance we could. I am sure that Brown, 
in his mind, was just waiting for something to turn up; or, in his 
way of thinking, was expecting or hoping that ' God would pro- 
vide him a basis of action.' When this came he hailed it as heaven- 
sent." 

Shubel Morgan decided to lead a party of ten or more to 
the home of Harvey G. Hicklan, or Hicklin, Daniels's tem- 
porary master, while Stevens, Tidd, Hazlett and others, to 
the number of eight, were to visit other plantations and rescue 
one or two more slaves who desired to drink of the cup of 
liberty. On the night of the 20th the two bands slowly took 
their way into Missouri. With Brown were a w^ell-known 
horse-thief, "Pickles" by designation, Charles Jennison, 
Jeremiah Anderson, Gill, Kagi and two young men by the 
name of Ayres, in addition to one or two others. At midnight 
Hicklan's door was quickly forced, and then, with pointed 
revolvers, he w^as informed of the mission of the raiders. 
Brown had decided to take some of the personal property 
of the estate to which the slaves belonged, in order to main- 
tain them. It was not easy to differentiate between Hick- 
lan's property and that of the Lawrence estate, and Gill, who 
was told off to prevent plundering, confessed that he found 
his task a difficult one. "I soon discovered," he says, "that 
watches and other articles were being taken; some of our 
number proved to be mere adventurers, ready to take from 
friend or foe as opportunity offered." In this they were not 
different from some other Free State marauders, who were 
often walling to line their pockets while helping the cause of 
liberty. Mr. Hicklan always insisted that: 

" Nothing that was taken was ever recovered. I learn that it was 
stated by John Brown that he made his men return all the property 
they had taken from me. This is not true. They did not give any- 
thing back. Brown said to me that we might get our property back 
if we could ; that he defied us and the whole United States to follow 
him. He and his men seemed anxious to take more from me than 
they did, for they ransacked the house in search of money, and I 
suppose they would have taken it if they had found it. . . . What 
I have stated is the truth, and I am willing to swear to it. I do 



SHUBEL MORGAN 369 

not hold any particular malice or prejudice on account of these old 
transactions. Old things have passed away, but the truth can never 
pass away." ®^ 

From Hicklan's, it was but three-quarters of a mile to the 
residence of John Larue, where five more slaves were liber- 
ated ; thence, taking with them John B. Larue and a Dr. Ervin, 
a guest of the family, as prisoners, Brown and his men re- 
turned to Kansas. According to pro-slavery accounts: 

"Besides the negroes, Brown took from the Lawrence estate two 
good horses, a yoke of oxen, a good wagon, harness, saddles, a con- 
siderable quantity of provisions, bacon, flour, meal, coffee, sugar, 
etc., all of the bedding and clothing of the negroes, Hicklin's shot- 
gun, over-coat, boots, and many other articles belonging to the 
whites. From Larue were taken five negroes, six head of horses, har- 
ness, a wagon, a lot of bedding and clothing, provisions, and, in short, 
all the 'loot' available and portable." '^^ 

Meanwhile, Stevens's expedition had released but one slave, 
and that at the cost of the owner's life. David Cruise, a 
wealthy settler, had a woman slave whom the Daniels party 
wished to take along on their journey toward the North Star. 
Stevens had hardly entered the house when he thought that 
Mr. Cruise was reaching for a weapon. He fired instantly and 
the old man dropped dead. A thirteen-year-old son, who had 
recognized Hazlett, afterwards charged him with the crime. 
But Stevens freely admitted the killing, though it weighed 
heavily upon him. Once, while at the Kennedy Farm, just 
before the raid on Harper's Ferry, he was asked to tell of it, and 
consented to if not urged again, for, he said, " I dislike to talk 
of it." He went, he declared,^^ to the cabin and demanded the 
girl. The old man asked him in. Thoughtlessly he entered, 
when the old man slipped behind him, locked the door and 
II pulled a gun." It became instantly a case of shoot first. 
"You might call it a case of self-defence," asserted Stevens, 
"or you might also say that I had no business in there, and 
that the old man was right." Subsequently the Cruise family 
also charged wholesale looting of the house, the taking of two 
yoke of oxen, a wagon-load of provisions, eleven mules and 
two horses. It was also declared that a valuable mule was 
taken from another neighbor, Hugh Martin." 



370 JOHN BROWN 

Naturally, the death of Mr. Cruise created great excitement 
in Missouri, for, Stevens's narrative to the contrary notwith- 
standing, he ranked as a peaceful, law-abiding citizen, accus- 
tomed to minding his own business. This murder instantly 
imperilled the safety of all the Kansas settlements near the 
border line, for it was wholly unprovoked and without a 
shadow of the usual apology, that Cruise had been guilty of 
outrages upon the people of Kansas. In 1856 such an event 
would have been excuse enough for a wholesale military inva- 
sion of the Territory. As it was, Montgomery found it wise to 
be more than ever vigilant in the protection of the border. 
Stevens himself was not naturally bloodthirsty, but was the 
bravest of all Brown's men. Gill says of him, that he "was one 
of nature's noblemen if there ever was one. Generous and 
brave, impulsive and loving, one cannot speak too well or too 
kindly of him." ^^ 

But the result of the killing was bad enough. The Harrison- 
ville, Missouri, Democrat called the raiders robbers and assas- 
sins, and urged the Governor to do "something to protect our 
people." ^9 The Wyandotte City Western Argus declared that 
Montgomery, who was first charged with being one of the 
raiders, and Brown "will have a heavy account to settle some 
day — for surely a terrible retribution will come to them 
sooner or later." It added that their "infamous deeds destroy 
the prospects of Territorial advancement," and would pre- 
vent the coming of emigrants next spring.'^" The Lawrence 
newspapers were also hostile to the Missouri adventure, even 
the Republican criticising it, after having been urged to do so 
by George A. Crawford at Governor Medary's request. The 
editor of the Leavenworth Herald wrote from Jefferson City, 
Missouri, January 21, 1859, that "in the present state of 
affairs, the people of Kansas owe it to themselves, to the 
country, and to justice and right to put down these outlaws 
and preserve the peace. There is no earthly excuse for their 
invasion of Missouri." '^ General Lane, seeing his opportunity 
for another piece of bravado, wrote on January 9 to Governor 
Medary, offering, if given proper authority by him, to produce 
both Brown and Montgomery, after having procured their 
disbandment, "before the Kansas Legislature, now in session, 
or before any tribunal you may name." This offer elicited 



SHUBEL MORGAN 371 

only a diplomatic letter of thanks from Governor Medary, 
and led the vicious Herald of Freedom to afifirm '^^ that, how- 
ever Lane's offer might appear to others, it was to its editors 
"conclusive evidence of the complicity of Lane in those 
disturbances," — a ridiculous assertion. The St. Louis Mis- 
souri-Democrat printed, early in January, a letter from an 
Osawatomie correspondent, who thus portrayed the effect 
of Brown's raid, before describing it in detail: " 

"Hardly has the mind cooled down from the fever heat into which 
it was thrown by the Ft. Scott tragedy, before it is wrought up to 
a frenzied condition by the enactment of new scenes in the present 
exciting drama. Hardly is the ear saluted by one piece of startling 
intelligence before it is stunned by additional news, of a nature so 
revolting that the mind grows dizzy with horror, and involuntarily 
inquires whether we are not relapsing into the barbarism of the 
middle ages. It is not probable that the killing of Cruise was pre- 
meditated, but finding himself attacked by rob.bers, he resisted, as 
was natural, and as he had a right to do, and he was shot down 
remorselessly by the fiend who had attacked him. I have yet to see 
the first free State man of position in or around Osawatomie, who 
does not condemn in the strongest terms, any going into Missouri 
or committing depredations." 

Finally, the President of the United States offered a reward 
of $250 for the arrest of Brown and Montgomery, and the 
Governor of Missouri $3000 for the capture of Brown. ^'^ 

With his two white prisoners and the slaves. Brown had 
moved slowly back to Kansas, meeting Stevens's party with 
its unhappy report of Cruise's death. As soon as the sun was 
well up, the whole party drew aside into a deep-wooded ravine, 
some distance from the road. Remaining in camp through- 
out the day, they resumed their journey after dark, and at 
midnight on Wednesday reached the home of Augustus Wat- 
tles, two miles north of Mound City. Montgomery and a few 
of his men were sleeping, as Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse has 
related the story, ^^ {^ Wattles's loft, and were awakened 

"by the chattering and laughing of the darkies as they warmed 
around the stove while Mrs. Wattles was getting supper. Mont- 
gomery put his head down the stairway, exclaiming: 'How is this, 
Capt. Brown? Whom have you here?' Brown replied, waving his 
hat around the circle, 'Allow me to introduce to you a part of my 
family. Observe I have carried the war into Africa.' After supper 



372 JOHN BROWN 

the women and children were taken to the house of J. O. Wattles, 
only a few steps away, the men went to their wagons, while Brown 
and two of his men lay on the floor for the two or three hours remain- 
ing of the night;" 

At dawn on Thursday the caravan started again, and this 
time without Brown. Two of his men accompanied the one 
ox-team, which was sent forward, one going ahead to act as 
pilot. But the latter turned back to "see the fun," believing 
that Brown was going to have some fighting with the pur- 
suers hourly expected. Thus the man driving the team went 
on alone with his valuable living freight. It was near sunset 
and quite cold when they arrived at Osawatomie, Mr. Adair 
stated, and it was Christmas Eve as well. Mr. Adair wrote, ^^^ 
in recalling the arrival of this pathetic band of dusky fugi- 
tives, that: 

"The fugitive slave law was still in force. I realized in some 
measure the responsibility of receiving them, consulted my wife, 
calling her attention to our responsibility, but would do as she said. 
She considered the subject for a few moments, then said: ' I cannot 
turn them away.' By this time the team was in the road in front of 
the house. All were taken round to the backyard, and the colored 
people were brought into the back kitchen and kept there that 
night. ..." 

It was at two a. m. of the morning after Christmas that the 
fugitives were finally placed in the old abandoned preemption 
cabin on the south fork of the Pottawatomie, south of Osa- 
watomie, belonging to a young Vermonter, Charles Severns." 
Of unhewn hickory poles, neither chinked nor daubed, with- 
out door, floor, or windows, it must nevertheless have seemed 
a haven of rest and safety to the negroes escaping from the 
evil fate which would have been theirs, had they gone on the 
auction-block in Missouri. If they were not beyond danger of 
recapture, there were kind neighbors to bring them food, give 
them encouragement and stand guard over them. There 
were friendly armed men constantly watching the cabin, which 
could be seen for a long distance from several sides. The 
slaves were armed and told on no account to surrender. They 
quickly made the cabin habitable, building a chimney of 
prairie sod, and the naturally gay spirits of the race bubbled 
over so that frequently they had to be cautioned to be 



SHUBEL MORGAN 373 

quiet. Several times they were on the verge of discovery, but 
the danger was always staved off. Pottawatomie Creek for 
twenty-five miles southwest of Osawatomie, with all its tribu- 
taries, was in vain searched by armed Missourians, who gave 
special attention to the timber along the streams. The open 
prairie was after all the safest place. 

Meanwhile, Shubel Morgan, whose raid into Missouri was 
the eighth undertaken by Kansas Free State men, was in 
readiness to repel a counter-invasion. William Hutchinson, 
the Kansas correspondent of the New York Times, who had 
come South to see for himself how things stood, met John 
Brown at noon on Thursday, December 30, and went with him 
to Wattles's home.^^ He wrote to his wife a few days later: 

"Have heard the full history of Brown's going into Missouri and 
shall justify him. I met with Brown and his boys about noon that 
day, Thursday. We went to Wattles that night together, and we 
were together all night and next day, talking much with him and 
Wattles and others who called on us. They took special pains to 
have a war council on my account, and appeared to have great con- 
fidence in the opinion of 'the man from Lawrence,' as some termed 
me. I am so vain as to think my advice did have some good effect. 
I recommended one more trial for a settlement before resorting 
to rash measures, and they accepted my plans, and we drew up a 
paper for signatures and Wattles started to circulate it among both 
parties." 

This was undoubtedly a second draft of the John Brown 
plan referred to above. Mr. Hutchinson in later years had a 
vivid recollection of that night with John Brown. 

"Our bed was a mattress made of hay, laid upon the floor of the 
second story. Sleep seemed to be a secondary matter with him. I 
am sure he talked on that night till the small hours, and his all 
absorbing theme was ' my work,' ' my great duty,' ' my mission,' etc., 
meaning of course, the liberation of the slaves. He seemed to have 
no other object in Hfe, no other liope or ambition. The utmost sin- 
cerity pervaded his every thought and word." 

From Wattles's home Brown went into camp on Turkey 
Creek, not far from Fort Scott, where he witnessed the begin- 
ning of the last calendar year of his life. On January 2 he 
formally wrote to Montgomery, ^^ asking him to hold himself 
in readiness to call out reinforcements at a moment's notice, 



374 JOHN BROWN 

to prevent a possible invasion because of a raid into Missouri. 
Montgomery, meanwhile, was eagerly at work for peace, and 
attended with Mr. Hutchinson a peace meeting three miles 
from Mapleton. Mr. Hutchinson wrote the resolutions that 
were adopted. 

"Montgomery," he says, "made a good speech, and every man on 
the ground seemed fully to endorse him. . . . The whole country 
along the border is in arms and I fear the end is distant. . . . The 
blood is up on this side and they won't stop now for trifles, from late 
reports. To-day, Jan. 3rd, some 500 men from Fort Scott crossed 
the river (Little Osage) near the State line going North, and we all 
expect warm work is near." 

Fortunately for all concerned, there was no great bloodshed, 
— merely skirmishes, in one of which three Free State men 
were wounded. In these engagements Kagi commanded, for 
Brown had already gone North, — he reached Osawatomie 
on January 11. The pro-slavery forces were a posse bent on 
capturing the Free State invaders of Missouri.^" 

Early in January, Shubel Morgan was visited by George 
A. Crawford, a Free State Democrat, who went South at 
Governor Medary's request, and reported both to him and 
to President Buchanan. Writing to Eli Thayer, of Worcester, 
on August 4, 1879, Mr. Crawford thus described in part this 
interview near the Trading Post : 

"I protested to the Captain against this violence [the killing of 
Cruise]. We were settlers — he was not. He could strike a blow 
and leave. The retaliatory blow would fall on us. Being a free-state 
man, I myself was held personally responsible by pro-slavery ruf- 
fians in Ft. Scott for the acts of Capt. Brown. One of these ruf- 
fians — Brockett — when they gave me notice to leave the town, 
said, 'When a snake bites me I don't go hunting for that particular 
snake. I kill the first snake I come to.' I called Capt. Brown's 
attention to the fact that we were at peace with Missouri — that 
our Legislature was then in the hands of Free State men to make the 
laws — that even in our disturbed counties of Bourbon and Linn 
they were in a majority and had elected officers both to make and 
execute the laws — that without peace we could have no immigra- 
tion — that no Southern immigration was coming — that agitation 
such as his was only keeping our Northern friends away, etc., etc. 
The old man replied that it was no pleasure to him, an old man, to 
be living in the saddle, away from home and family, exposing his 
life, and if the Free State men of Kansas felt that they no longer 



SHUBEL MORGAN 375 

needed him he would be glad to go. ... I think the conversation 
made an impression on him, for he soon after went to his self-sac- 
rifice at Harper's Ferry." *'^ 

To Brown's final visit to his staunch friend Wattles especial 
interest attaches, for it was at this time that he produced the 
'Parallels' published in the New York Tribune and else- 
where, which attracted great attention and are more often 
quoted In connection wdth Brown than anything else except 
his final address to the Virginia jury. Mr. Wattles had 
severely censured his old friend "for going into Missouri con- 
trary to our agreement and getting these slaves." He replied, 
Mr. Wattles testified In 1 860 : ^^ ' ' j considered the matter well ; 
you will have no more attacks from Missouri; I shall now 
leave Kansas; probably you will never see me again; I con- 
sider It my duty to draw the scene of the excitement to some 
other part of the country." Montgomery and Kagi were 
parties to this discussion as to the storm his raid had created. 
Brown had been writing letters as they talked. ^^ Finally, 
turning to the others with a manuscript In his hand, he said: 
"Gentlemen, I would like to have your attention for a few 
minutes. I usually leave the newspaper work to KagI, but 
this time I have something to say myself ^ He then read 
the 'Parallels,' which he had dated at the Trading Post, lest 
the usual date line, Moneka, prove a cause of trouble to the 
staunch Wattles household. They are as follows: 

Trading Post, Kansas, Jany. 1859. 
Gents: You will greatly oblige a humble friend by allowing the 
use of your colums while I briefly state two parallels, in my poor 
way. Not One year ago Eleven quiet citizens of this neighborhood 
(viz) Wm Robertson, Wm Colpetzer, Amos Hall, Austin Hall, John 
Campbell, Asa Snyder, Thos Stilwell, Wm Hairgrove, Asa Hair- 
grove, Patrick Ross, and B. L. Reed, — were gathered up from 
their work, & their homes by an armed force (under One Hamil- 
ton) & without trial ; or opportunity to speak in own defence were 
formed into a line & all but one shot. Five killed & Five wounded. 
One fell unharmed, pretending to be dead. All were left for dead. 
The only crime charged against them was that of being Free-State 
men. Now, I inquire what action has ever, since the occurrence in 
May last, been taken by either the President of the United States; 
the Governor of Missouri, or the Governor of Kansas, or any of their 
tools; or by any proslavery or administration man? to ferret out 
and punish the perpetrators of this crime? 



376 JOHN BROWN 

Now for the other parallel. On Sunday the 19th of December a 
negro called Jim came over to the Osage settlement from Missouri 
& stated that he together with his Wife, Two Children, & another 
Negro man were to be sold within a day or Two & beged for help 
to get away. On Monday (the following) night. Two small com- 
panies were made up to go to Missouri & forcibly liberate the Five 
slaves together with other slaves. One of these companies I assumed 
to direct. We proceeded to the place surrounded the buildings lib- 
erated the slaves & also took certain property supposed to belong to 
the estate. We however learned before leaveing that a portion of the 
articles we had taken belonged to a man living on the plantation as a 
tenant, & who was supposed to have no interest in the estate. We 
promptly returned to him all we had taketi so far I believe. We then 
went to another plantation, where we freed Five more slaves, took 
some property; & Two white men. We moved all slowly away into 
the Territory for some distance, & then sent the White men back, 
telling them to follow us as soon as they chose to do so. The other 
company freed One female slave, took some property; &, as I am 
informed, killed One White man (the master), who fought against 
the liberation. Now for a comparison. Eleven persons are forcibly 
restored to their natural; & inalienable rights, with but one man 
killed ; & all "Hell is stirred from beneath." It is currently reported 
that the Governor of Missouri has made a requisition upon the 
Governor of Kansas for the delivery of all such as were concerned in 
the last-named "dreadful outrage." The Marshal of Kansas is said 
to be collecting a possee of Missouri (not Kansas) men at West Point 
in Missouri a little town about Ten miles distant, to "enforce the 
laws," & all proslavery conservative Free-State, and dough-faced 
men & Administration tools are filled with holy horror. 

Consider the two cases, and the action of the Administration 

party. 

Respectfully yours, 

John Brown.^* 

Indubitably, the parallel was an effective one. The theft of 
black human property was always the most heinous offence 
known in the South during slavery days ; and, although he had 
expressed due horror at the Hamilton massacre. Governor 
Denver had neither requisitioned the Governor of Missouri 
for the delivery of Hamilton's criminals, nor offered a reward 
for their apprehension. Now, however, the case was different.^^ 
Governor Medary sent a message to the Legislature on Janu- 
ary II, denouncing both Brown and Montgomery, refusing to 
give the names of his informants as to their movements in 
Linn and Bourbon counties, and asking the Legislature to act 
at once, besides repeating his offer of $250 reward each for 



SHUBEL MORGAN 377 

the arrest of Brown and Montgomery.ss To this a committee 
of the Legislature made a remarkably spirited and able reply. 
While censuring Brown and Montgomery, and attributing to 
them the "ruin and desolation" that had "settled down on 
two of the most beautiful counties in Kansas," the committee 
was "clearly of the opinion that all armed bands should be 
dispersed, and the law should be sustained. Kansas has too 
long suffered in her good name from the acts of lawless men 
and from the corruption of Federal of^cers," As to the Federal 
Government's offer of a reward, the committee was emphatic 
in its statement that this policy would not succeed. "The 
man of Kansas," it said, "that would, for a reward, deliver up 
a man to the General Government, would sink into the grave 
of an Arnold or a Judas. . . . Such have been the acts of the 
General Government in this Territory, that public sentiment 
will not permit any person to receive the gold of the General 
Government as a bribe to do a duty." " There being a mi- 
nority report of a different character, the Legislature referred 
the whole matter to a select committee, which brought in a 
harmless report that the Legislature should uphold the Gov- 
ernor in enforcing the law. 

Montgomery promptly wrote, on January 15, a long letter 
to the Lawrence Republtcan,^^ setting forth actual conditions 
and saying among other things: "For Brown's doings in Mis- 
souri I am not responsible. I know nothing of either his plans 
or intentions. Brown keeps his own counsels, and acts on his 
own responsibility. I hear much said about Montgomery and 
his company. I have no company. We have had no organiza- 
tion since the 5th day of July." Montgomery, with splendid 
courage, followed this letter up in person, arriving in Lawrence 
on January 18, and, boldly walking into court in the after- 
noon, surrendered himself to Judge Elmore, by whom he was 
turned over to the sheriff. As the only indictment pending 
against him was one for robbing a post-office, this border 
leader was promptly released on four thousand dollars' bail. 
Two days later, he spoke for nearly three hours before a large 
audience in the Lawrence Congregational Church, detailing 
the whole history of the border troubles.^a Frequently inter- 
rupting him with applause, the audience, at the conclusion 
of his story, gave three cheers for him, and three more for 



378 JOHN BROWN 

"Old John Brown." The next day, Montgomery went back to 
the South, where he continued his efforts in behalf of peace. 
On February 2 he returned to Lawrence with six of his men, 
who likewise surrendered to Judge Elmore, to Governor 
Medary's great satisfaction. ^° 

As for John Brown, he was now ready to leave the Territory 
for the last time. Of constructive work there was no more to 
his credit than when he left the Territory in 1856. The terror 
of his name undoubtedly acted as a deterrent while he was on 
the Missouri line. But there had been peace in Linn and 
Bourbon counties, and would have been, had he not appeared, 
until Montgomery rightly or wrongly assumed the offensive 
in November, — except for the usual lawlessness of a frontier 
where the courts are not respected. As Montgomery said, 
Shubel Morgan kept his own counsels and went his own way, 
and the sole act of any significance to be credited to him during 
this six months in southern Kansas is the capture of the slaves. 
On the other hand, his presence in Linn, after deducting 
properly the numerous acts wrongfully attributed to him and 
his men, was in itself the cause of excitement and strife. It 
was an incentive to men of the Weaver type to spread stories 
of impending trouble for their own ends. Certain it is that 
the Missouri raid, in violation of his agreement, caused many 
peaceful Free State settlers to flee their homes for fear of vio- 
lence, and might have resulted seriously but for the efforts 
of certain Missourians to keep the peace, and for the pusilla- 
nimity of those who wished to retaliate but feared the conse- 
quences. In Missouri, however, that raid had caused sufficient 
alarm to convince Brown again of the telling effect upon the 
crumbling foundations of slavery of a similar undertaking on a 
larger scale. "All the slaves in the thickest slave settlements 
in Missouri for twenty or thirty miles have been carried into 
Texas or Arkansas, or are closely guarded by a large force 
every night," reported, on January 15, a Tribune correspondent 
from Lawrence.^ 1 

It is not to be believed that if the Massachusetts friends of 
John Brown had been fully informed as to what little good he 
had achieved, after they sent him back to Kansas, or of the 
results of his surrounding himself with armed followers, they 
would have been wholly content with the outlay they had 



SHUBEL MORGAN 379 

made to send him there. Gerrit Smith and others rejoiced in 
the Missouri Hberations,^^ ^y^- j^ ^^^^ ^^^ appear that they 
were aware that quiet was restored as soon as Brown left the 
Territory and Montgomery decided to work for peace. This 
was finally assured by the Legislature's passage of an act 
granting amnesty to all who had committed crimes in Linn 
and Bourbon and four other counties. This act was approved 
by Governor Medary on February ii,^^ when Brown was on 
his way out of the Territory. Thereafter there was peace and 
quiet in Kansas until the Civil War came with its renewal of 
strife, of anarchy and border lawlessness, with the Quantrell 
massacre at Lawrence and the other episodes of the long war 
between brothers. 

Brown parted about January 20 from his kinspeople at 
Osawatomie, and, with a disregard and contempt akin to 
Montgomery's for the rewards offered for his arrest, set out 
with the liberated slaves for the long journey to Canada, with 
Gill as his sole helper on the road to Lawrence. On the nth 
of January he had written to his family ^^ of his middling 
health and his regret that he had been unable to finish up his 
business as rapidly as he had hoped to, when he wrote pre- 
viously (December 2). He was still unable to give an address 
for them to write to, and he made no reference to his rescue of 
the slaves, or to his impending departure for the East. This 
was delayed by the arrival of a twelfth fugitive, a baby born 
to one of the slave women; to it was given the name of John 
Brown. "A day or two before starting," records Mr. Gill: 

"I had learned of a span of horses held by a Missourian stopping 
temporarily a few miles from Osawatomie, and the suspicion was 
well grounded that he had appropriated them from free state 
owners. At Garnett I acquainted Stevens and Tidd with the fact, 
who set out the same evening that we did, to replevin these horses. 
After doing so they proceeded to Topeka to await us; Kagi also 
scouted ahead for some purpose, most probably to arrange stop- 
ping places for us, and then went on ahead also for Topeka, leaving 
Brown and myself alone with the colored folks." 

With this reconversion of pro-slavery horses into loyal Free 
State animals. Brown's men wound up their career in south- 
eastern Kansas. 

Shubel Morgan's trip from the cabin near Garnett to Major 



380 JOHN BROWN 

J. B. Abbott's house near Lawrence was as trying as it was 
daring. Through mud, and then over frozen ground, without 
a dollar of money in their pockets, their shoes all but falling 
apart, Gill and Brown resolutely drove the slow-going ox- 
team, with its load of women and children.^^ These two 
staunch men demonstrated here, if ever, their willingness to 
suffer for others; Gill's feet were frozen when they reached 
Major Abbott's, on January 24, and "the old man," Gill 
relates, "had fingers, nose and ears frozen." From this haven 
of rest they sent the ox-team and wagon into Lawrence to be 
sold, and in its place obtained horses and wagons. Samuel 
F. Tappan, who, like Major Abbott, had been one of Bran- 
son's rescuers in 1855, loaned a two-horse wagon, with Eben 
Archibald as driver.^^ It was while he was staying with Major 
Abbott or a near-by neighbor, Mr. Grover, that Brown re- 
ceived a visit from Dr. John Doy, whose subsequent mis- 
fortune aroused indignation throughout the North. Dr. Doy 
had been asked to pilot a number of negroes from Lawrence 
to safety, and it was first agreed that he should join forces 
with Brown. Circumstances altered, however, and it was 
decided that they should move separately. Dr. Doy spent one 
evening endeavoring to induce Brown to change his mind, or 
at least to give him part of his small escort." But Brown had, 
besides Archibald, only Gill and possibly one other. The next 
day both Doy and Brown were on their way. The resoluteness 
and intrepidity of the latter carried him safely through to 
Nebraska. But where he escaped posses and United States 
troops. Dr. Doy was easily taken, his negroes — two of them 
free-born — sent back to a hateful bondage, while Dr. Doy 
himself was sentenced to five years in the Missouri peniten- 
tiary, to which he would have gone, had not the brave and ever 
ready Major Abbott and other friends rescued him from jail, 
in St. Joseph, in the nick of time. 

Somehow or other, Brown recruited his finances while near 
Lawrence,9« ^nd his wagons, when he drove away, were creak- 
ing with the weight of provisions contributed by Major 
Abbott and Mr. Grover. He narrowly escaped capture on the 
road by men who were expecting him to come by in an ox-cart. 
Leaving Lawrence on the evening of the 25th for Topeka, he 
stopped at the residence of a Mr. Owen, two miles north of the 



SHUBEL MORGAN 381 

town.99 There Gill dropped out to rest and recuperate, the 
indomitable Stevens taking his place. But there was no rest 
for Brown. On the 28th his little train reached Holton amid 
all the discomfort of a driving prairie snow-storm. ^'^° Here 
fugitives and conductors alike were compelled to seek refuge 
from the elements in the tavern, with the result that news of 
their presence spread quickly. The following day the fates were 
clearly against them, for when they reached their next Under- 
ground Railroad station, six miles away, the cabin of Abram 
Fuller on Straight, or Spring, Creek, that stream was too high 
to ford. 

All day Sunday the adventurers rested in cabins near the 
creek, while a messenger sent to Topeka called a congregation 
out of church to go to Brown's aid ; for on Saturday Brown 
had discovered the presence in his immediate neighborhood of 
a posse from Atchison, headed by Mr. A. P. Wood, which 
barred the way to liberty on the other side of the creek, — a 
fact at once triumphantly announced to President Buchanan 
by Governor Medary.^'^^ The latter hastily sent a special 
deputy marshal, Colby by name, to Colonel Sumner, who was 
now commandant of Fort Leavenworth, with a request for 
troops to capture Brown. ^''^ But long before Colby and the 
cavalry given him could reach Holton, that elusive bird for 
whom the net was spread had flown, — precisely as he had 
when Lieut. -Col. Cooke's dragoons so nearly captured him, — 
leaving Medary and Buchanan to swallow their chagrin 
as best they might. Their bete noir had leisurely traversed 
Kansas, his presence being known to many, yet the Territo- 
rial authorities had failed to lay hands upon him. 

How Brown thus escaped from Kansas is both an amusing 
and a characteristic story. His policy of going to close quar- 
ters when in the presence of the enemy again demonstrated its 
value on this occasion, which has been dubbed the " Battle of 
the Spurs." When the reinforcements from Topeka, headed 
by Colonel John Ritchie, arrived, the creek was still high and 
the crossing bad. What happened is told by an eye-witness, 
Llewellyn L. Kiene: ^^^ 

'"What do you propose to do. Captain?' asked one of the body 
guard. 

'"Cross the creek and move north,' he responded, and his lips 



382 JOHN BROWN 

closed in that familiar, firm expression which left no doubt as to his 
purpose. 

"'But captain, the water is high, and the Fuller crossing is very 
bad. I doubt if we can get through. There is a much better ford 5 
miles up the creek,' said one of the men who had joined the rescuers 
at Holton. 

"The old man faced the guard and his eyes flashed. 'I have set 
out on the Jim Lane road,' he said, 'and I intend to travel it straight 
through, and there is no use to talk of turning aside. Those who are 
afraid may go back, but I will cross at the Fuller crossing. The Lord 
has marked out a path for me, and I intend to follow it. We are 
ready to move.'" 

It is needless to say that no one faltered. Gill, who had come 
with the rescuers from Topeka, thus relates the story of the 
fray as he saw it: 

"At noon the next day [Monday] we reached McClain's cabins, 
where we found our company. I believe that they were glad to see 
us. Stevens had, awhile previous to our coming, gone out alone and 
demanded a surrender from four armed men. Three ran. One had 
to drop, as a 'bead' was drawn upon him. We now learned that 
there were about 80 rufhans waiting for us at the ford. We num- 
bered 22 — all told, of men, black and white. We marched down 
upon them. They had as good a position as eighty men could wish, 
to defeat a thousand, but the closer we got to the ford the farther 
they got from it. We found some of their horses. Our boys mounted 
and gave chase to them; succeeded in taking three or four prisoners. 
The last that was seen of the marshal was in the direction of Le- 
compton, and appearances suggested the idea that his mind was 
fixed upon the fate of Lot's wife." 

In such haste was the posse to escape that two men mounted 
one horse, and others clung to the tails of the horses of their 
comrades without taking time to mount their own. Such was 
the terror of John Brown's name. "There is a great deal of the 
old fighting spirit up," reported the Missouri Democrat, ^^^ in 
giving its account of the "Battle of the Spurs." "The chase," 
said the Leavenworth Times, 

"was a merry one and closed by Brown's taking off three of his pur- 
suers as prisoners; with four horses, pistols, guns, &c., as legitimate 
plunder. The prisoners were carried some twenty miles, and then 
sent back to Atchison both wiser and sadder men. They feel rather 
chop-fallen, and vent their wrath on their captain, whom they de- 
nounce as a blusterer and coward. The terms might be applied to 
the whole party as well, for aught we know. Old Captain Brown is 



SHUBEL MORGAN 383 

not to be taken by 'boys' and he cordially invites all proslavery 
men to try their hands at arresting him." ^"'^ 

From Holton, Brown's day's journey carried him to 
Sabetha, at the head of Pony Creek, six miles from the 
Nebraska line, where he again found helpful and earnest 
friends. The men were divided among three houses in the 
neighborhood for the night. The next day, February i, was 
his last in Kansas. Mr. Graham, of Sabetha, writes: 

"The morning Brown left Kansas he wanted me to go along and 
help them over the Nemaha river, and I did. When we came to the 
river it was so high we could not ford it, and the weather was very 
cold. We hoped it would freeze that night so that the ice would 
bear; and we stayed at the log-house of a half-breed Indian, named 
Tessaun, on the Sac and Fox Reservation [in Nebraska]. He had a 
double log-house, and gave us a large room with a bed in it. As I 
had no blankets, I was assigned to the bed with John Brown. In the 
morning the ice was strong enough to bear a man, but not a team; 
so they took the wagons to pieces and pushed them across; then laid 
poles across, with rails and bushes and boards on them, and over 
this bridge they led the horses. Then I bade them good bye, and 
returned to Sabetha." 

On the 4th, Brown crossed the Missouri at Nebraska City 
and stood on Iowa soil, eluding another posse of fifty, just 
before entering Nebraska City, which Gill met and avoided 
by a stratagem. One day more and he was in the familiar 
town of Tabor. ^°'^ The exodus from Kansas was over; the 
flight from the Egyptians had passed its most dangerous stage. 
Five days after his arrival there, on February 10, Brown wrote 
to his "Dear Wife and Children All:" 

" I am once more in Iowa through the great mercy of God. Those 
with me & other friends are well. I hope soon to be at a point where 
I can learn of your welfare & perhaps send you something besides 
my good wishes. I suppose you get the common news. May the 
God of my fathers be your God." ^°^ 

It was the same, yet for John Brown a changed. Tabor 
which he entered with the rescued slaves, elated over stand- 
ing on free soil. The news of his coming had preceded him, 
and with it the details of the Missouri exploit, the killing 
of Cruise, the taking of oxen, horses and wagons. Strongly 
anti-slavery as the town was, this seemed to it transgression of 



384 JOHN BROWN 

the bounds. Throughout the North public sentiment was then 
practically unanimous on the side of the fugitive slave. In 
Massachusetts the Federal Government itself was now power- 
less to take back the slave who had fled from his chains, so 
bitter was the anger of the citizens of the State after the ren- 
dition of Anthony Burns in 1854. The moral sentiment of the 
time perceived, moreover, no wrong in the slave's taking such 
things as he needed for his flight. Were they not but a small 
part of the wage he had earned which had been wickedly with- 
held from him? And would not flight in most cases have been 
impossible if they did not take at least the clothes they wore, 
which belonged not to them but to the master? To Ellen 
Craft, who, wearing her owner's suit and high hat, imperson- 
ated a white man travelling North, with her husband as an 
attendant slave, no stigma of theft attached. Slavery to the 
Abolitionists was the sum of human wickedness, and nearly all 
measures taken to escape from it were justifiable. Not, how- 
ever, the taking of human life. It was this that stuck in the 
crops of the Tabor community, which also had the frontier 
town's horror of the horse-thief. So that when John Brown's 
train of wagons arrived, there was a curious but a cold crowd 
to greet him. The slaves were put into a little school-house 
which yet stands, and the teams unloaded on the public com- 
mon that is still the particular attraction of Tabor. For a 
week, at least, Brown desired to rest and recuperate for the 
long overland trip across Iowa to Springdale. 

The next day being the Sabbath, as the Rev. John Todd, 
whose hospitable home had sheltered many an armed emi- 
grant ready to take human life in defence of Kansas, entered 
his church, there was handed to him the following note in John 
Brown's handwriting, which is still preserved in the Historical 
Department of Iowa at Des Moines: 

"John Brown respectfully requests the church at Tabor to offer 
public thanksgiving to Almighty God in behalf of himself, & com- 
pany : & of their rescued captives, in particular for his gracious pre- 
severation of their lives, & health ; & his signal deliverance of all out 
of the hand of the wicked, hitherto. 'Oh give thanks unto the Lord; 
for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever.' " 

The Rev. Dr. H. D. King was in the pulpit with Parson 
Todd, and to him the perplexed preacher turned for advice. 



SHUBEL MORGAN 385 

" Brother Todd," said Mr. King, i^^ " this is your church, but if 
I were you I would not make a prayer for them. Inasmuch as 
it is said they have destroyed Hfe and stolen horses, I should 
want to take the charge under examination before I made a 
public prayer." So, when the congregation was seated, Todd 
announced: ''A petition is before us. But perhaps under the 
circumstances it is better not to take public action. If any 
persons wish to help privately, it is their privilege to do so." 
There was also announced a meeting of the citizens for the 
next day. 

When this was called to order, John Brown was asked to 
speak in his own behalf. Just as he began his story, a Dr. 
Brown, of St. Joseph, Missouri, a well-known medical special- 
ist and a slaveholder, entered the church. Recognizing him, 
John Brown very quietly said that "one had just entered 
whom he preferred not to have hear what he had to say and 
would therefore respectfully request him to withdraw." 
Instantly a prominent citizen sprang to his feet and said he 
"hoped nothing would be heard that all might not hear." 
John Brow^n very quietly remarked that if that man remained 
he had nothing more to say, and soon afterward silently with- 
drew from the meeting. It was understood that he said to one 
of his men without: "We had best look to our arms. We are 
not yet among friends." i"^ George Gill relates that after 
Brown had declined to go on, Stevens arose and in his superb 
bass voice declared that " 'So help him God he never would sit 
in council w^ith one who bought and sold human flesh,' and 
left the hall as did the rest of our party." "o After a long dis- 
cussion, lasting it is said several hours, the meeting adopted 
the following resolutions, to John Brown's disgust: 

Resolved, That while we sympathize with the oppressed, & will 
do all that we conscientiously can to help them in their efforts 
for freedom, nevertheless, we have no Sympathy with those who 
go to Slave States, to entice away Slaves, & take property or life 
when necessary to attain that end. 

Tabor Feb 7th 1859 
J. Smith 

Secretary of said meating."^ 

It cannot be denied that the element of fear entered into the 
conclusion reached, i^- There were those in Tabor who thought 



386 JOHN BROWN 

that too great hospitality to Brown at this juncture might lead 
to pro-slavery attacks upon the town. Certain it is that, had 
"Jim" Daniels come to Parson Todd, or almost any other 
inhabitant of Tabor, and asked for aid for his family, pro- 
viding it were near by, he would not have been turned away 
unaided ; for this belief the town's record as an Underground 
Railroad station is reason enough. ^'^ 

John Brown finally turned his back on Tabor on Febru- 
ary 1 1 , and began his journey across Iowa. It was not without 
danger, for all the pro-slavery influences in the State were at 
work to prevent his reaching Canada, and many venturesome 
persons were attracted by the heavy reward for his head. 
Nevertheless, Brown took a well-beaten road, and did not shun 
the towns as he had in the previous winter, when moving the 
arms overland to Springdale. They stopped at Toole's, pre- 
sumably an Underground Railroad station, on the night of 
the 1 2th, at Lewis's Mills on the next day, and at Grove City 
on the 14th. 11" Dalmanutha was their resting-place on the 
15th, Aurora on the next day, and "Jordan's" on the 17th. 
The next day they boldly entered Des Moines, stopping, Mr. 
Gill says, "quite a while in the streets, Kagi hunting up Editor 
[John] Teesdale of the Register, an acquaintance of his; he also 
proved to be an old acquaintance of Brown's. Mr. Teesdale 
paid our ferriage across the Des Moines River." It was to 
Mr. Teesdale that Brown wrote in the next month, March, 
1859,"^ in reply to a request for his reasons for entering Mis- 
souri, that: 

"First it has been my deliberate judgment since 1855 that the 
most ready and effectual way to retrieve Kansas would be to med- 
dle directly with the peculiar institution. Next, we had no means of 
moving the rescued captives without taking a portion of their law- 
fully acquired earnings. All we took has been held sacred to that 
object and will be.""** 

After the parting from Mr. Teesdale, the night was spent at 
a Mr. Hawley's; on the next day, the 19th, the stop was at 
Dickerson's, and on the 25th, the caravan was enthusiasti- 
cally welcomed at Grinnell, the home of Josiah Busnell Grin- 
nell, the most prominent Abolitionist in the State, whose life 
record, it has been said, would be a history of Iowa. To his 



SHUBEL MORGAN 387 

house Brown went on arrival, and no welcome could have been 
more cordial. Mr. Grinnell himself has left a record of it,^" 
and Brown was so touched by it as to be moved to send the 
following summary of it to the backsliders in Tabor as coals 
of fire for their unworthy heads: 

Reception of Brown & Party at Grinnell, Iowa 

1st. Whole party & teams kept for Two days free of cost. 

2<? Sundry articles of clothing given to captives. 

3*^1 Bread, Meat, Cakes, Pies, etc. prepared for our journey. 

4th Full houses for Two Nights in succession at which meetings 
Brown and Kagi spoke and were loudly cheered; & fully indorsed. 
Three Congregational Clergymen attended the meeting on Sabbath 
evening (notice of which was given out from the Pulpit). All of them 
took part in justifying our course & in urging contributions in our 
behalf & there was no dissenting speaker present at either meeting. 
Mr. Grinnell spoke at length & has since laboured to procure us a 
free and safe conveyance to Chicago: & effected it. 

5th Contributions in cash amounting to $26.50 Twenty Six Dol- 
lars & Fifty cents. 

6th Last but not least Public thanksgiving to Allmighty God 
offered up by Mr. Grinnell in the behalf of the whole company for 
His great mercy ; & protecting care, with prayers for a continuance 
of those blessings. 

As the action of Tabor friends has been published in the news- 
papers by some of her people (as I suppose), would not friend 
Gaston or some other friend give publicity to all the above. 
Respectfully your friend 

John Brown 
Springdale, Iowa 26th Feby 1859 
P. S. 

our reception among the Quaker friends here has been most 
cordial. 

Yours truly, 

J. B."« 

From Grinnell on, the party, moving slowly, reached Iowa 
City on the morning of the 25th, and the familiar Springdale 
on the same afternoon. Here the slaves and Brown remained 
until March 10, when they departed from West Liberty for 
Chicago, because of persistent rumors that the pro-slavery 
element in Iowa City, headed by Samuel Workman, the Bu- 
chanan postmaster, would endeavor to recapture the slaves. 
Indeed, an effort was made to arrest Brown and Kagi when 



388 JOHN BROWN 

they spent a night in Iowa City, after reaching Springdale.^^^ 
While Brown and Kagi were in the back of a restaurant, 
two men appeared at the front door and demanded the 
"damned nigger-thief of Kansas," whom they were going to 
hang with the rope in their hands. The restaurant-keeper, 
Baumer by name, sent them away and notified Brown. There 
was at that time a street-meeting going on, and to it Baumer 
went, and returning, reported that there was an excited dis- 
cussion going on as to how Brown could be taken without 
risking the captors' skins. Finally, a picked force was sent 
to Dr. Jesse Bowen's stable to watch it, for Brown's team 
was correctly thought to be there. Dr. Jesse Bowen, William 
Penn Clarke, L. A. Duncan and a Colonel Trowbridge, Abo- 
litionist friends, rallied to Brown's support, and spirited him 
and Kagi out of town early in the morning. Colonel Trow- 
bridge led them safely by unfrequented roads, 

"to a Quaker's house not far from Pedee, and there left them to 
their own resources, while he made his way back to Iowa City. 
There was then a post-office called Carthage, six miles east of the 
city, in Scott township, and a man named Gruilich was the post- 
master. At this place there was a party of men shooting at a target, 
drinking liquor, and waiting for old John Brown to come along." 

It was while staying in Springdale, on this last visit, that 
Brown wrote a letter to Dr. Bowen at Iowa City, which is of 
value as showing clearly that he still felt himself morally and 
legally entitled to some of the arms remaining in Tabor, under 
the National Committee vote of January 24, 1857 (not Jan- 
uary 2 as below) : 

Springdale, Cedar Co, Iowa, 3rd March 1859 
Dr Jesse Bowen ' 

Dear Sir 

I was lately at Tabor in this State where there is lying in the 
care of Jonas Jones Esqr. one brass field piece fully mounted; & 
carriage good. Also a quantity of grape and round shot: together 
with part of another carriage of some value. Also some twenty or 
over U. S. rifles with flint locks. The rifles are good and in good 
order, I have held a claim on these articles since Jan 2 1857 that is 
both morally and legally good against any and all other parties: but 
I informed Mr. Jones that I would most cheerfully; and even gladly 
waive it entirely in your favor: knowing the treatment you have 
received. I should think these articles might be so disposed of as 



SHUBEL MORGAN 389 

to save you from ultimate loss: but I need not say to you how 
important is perfect and secure possession in such cases: & you 
are doubtless informed of the disordered condition of the National 
Kansas Committee matters. I left with you a little cannon & car- 
riage. Could you, or any one induce the inhabitants of your city 
to make me up something for it; & buy it either to keep as an old 
relic; or for the sake of helping me a little? I am certainly quite 
needy; and have moreover quite a family to look after. There are 
those who would sooner see me supplied with a good halter than 
anything else for my services. Will you please write me frankly to 
John H. Painter Esqr or by bearer whether you think anything can 
be done for me with the gun; or otherwise? My best wishes for 
yourself & family. 

Respectfully your friend 

John Brown '^^ 

Whether through Dr. Bowen's efforts or those of some one 
else, this little cannon now ornaments the library of the Uni- 
versity of Iowa, at Iowa City. 

The kindly Quakers of Springdale were quite relieved when 
Brown finally disbanded his escort and moved on, for they 
were well aware that he and his men would fight before they 
would give up the slaves. Stevens, Gill related, on hearing 
that there might be a rescue attempted, said: "Just give me 
a house and I'll defend them against forty." "A bystander," 
continued Mr. Gill, "has since told me that he had often heard 
of the eyes flashing fire, but that he never believed it until 
then. It was in the dusk of evening, and he declared that he 
did actually see the sparks flying from his [Stevens's] eyes." ^^^ 
It is said that a posse did leave Iowa City for Springdale, 
but thought better of it on hearing that Brown was in readi- 
ness for them ; on at least one occasion the young Quakers of 
the vicinity stood guard with Brown's men most of the night, 
to protect the fugitives. ^■-'■^ On March 9, with a strong guard 
of white men, the slaves were moved to Keith's steam mil! 
at West Liberty, the nearest railroad station. Here they were 
kept overnight, and in the morning, when the first train from 
Iowa City passed, it conveniently left a box-car near the mill. 
"Acting no doubt," says an eye-witness,^-^ " upon the suppo- 
sition it was intended for use, it was at once made ready, the 
colored people and property placed within." At eleven o'clock 
the Chicago train came along, only to leave with the innocent- 
looking box-car safely between the engine and the express car. 



390 JOHN BROWN 

The use of the box-car had finally been obtained by William 
Penn Clarke, by making the agent at West Liberty believe 
that the railroad officials knew and connived. ^^4 Xhis he did 
by showing him a draft of fifty dollars for Brown from John 
F. Tracy, the superintendent of the road, and a friendly letter 
from Hiram Price, the secretary of the road, to a deputy 
superintendent. Mr. Grinnell, by engaging the car in Chicago, 
aided, and Mr. Tracy refused to accept payment for the car 
on the ground that "we might be held for the value of every 
one of those niggers." ^" 

At Chicago, Brown, with Kagi and Stevens * and his dusky 
followers, awakened Allan Pinkerton, of detective fame, at 
4.30 the next morning, March 11. Pinkerton at once distrib- 
uted them and got them under cover, sending John Brown 
to his friend John Jones, a negro, and taking others into 
his own house. He got some breakfast, and then hurried to 
Jones's to see Brown, who explained that he was on the way 
to Canada, After some talk they decided to wait until after a 
lawyers' meeting that day, at which Pinkerton hoped to get 
some money. He actually did raise between five and six hun- 
dred dollars, and obtained a car from Colonel C. G. Ham- 
mond, the General Superintendent of the Michigan Central 
Railway, who personally saw to it that the car was stocked 
with provisions and water. ^-^ At 4.45 that same afternoon, 
the party left Chicago for Detroit in charge of Kagi, arriving 
at ten o'clock on March 12, Brown going by an earlier train 
to make sure of meeting Frederick Douglass, then in Detroit. 
He was on hand to have the happiness of seeing his black 
charges on the ferry-boat for Windsor, where they were soon 
rejoicing in their freedom under the Union Jack. One of the 
slave women had had six masters, and four of the party had 
served sixteen owners in all.^^^ Henceforth they were to be 
in control of their own persons and profit by their own labor. 
As for their benefactor, John Brown, he had brought them 
safely eleven hundred miles in eighty-two days from the date 
of their liberation, six hundred miles of which had been cov- 
ered in wagons in the dead of winter. The hegira was at an 
end. 

* Gill had parted at Springdale from Brown finally, because of inflammatory 
rheumatism. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 

There was no period of rest and jubilation for John Brown, 
however it might be with the rescued slaves in their new 
Canadian surroundings. He and Kagi arrived in Cleveland 
on March 15, from Detroit, and spent about a week with Mrs. 
Charles M. Sturtevant, a sister of Charles W. Moffet, before 
going on to Ashtabula County to visit his sons there domi- 
ciled.^ While in Cleveland, Brown sought to raise money by 
two methods, lecturing and the sale of two of his captured 
horses and a "liberated" mule. The Cleveland Leader of 
March 18, 1859, announced the lecture in this manner: 

"'Old Brown' of Kansas, the terror of all Border Ruffiandom, 
with a number of his men, will be in Cleveland tonight, when he, 
and J. H. Kagi, Kansas correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune, will 
give a true account of the recent troubles in Kansas, and of the late 
'Invasion of Missouri,' and what it was done for, together with 
other highly interesting matters that have never yet appeared in 
the papers. The meeting will be held in Chapin's Hall yh o'clock. 
These men have fought and suffered bravely for Free Kansas, and 
with good effect. Go and hear them and you will not grudge your 
quarter, necessary to defray the expenses to which they have been 
subjected by the persecutions of their enemies, aided and abetted 
by the faithless Democratic administration." 

On account of a violent storm, few people attended the 
lecture, which was therefore postponed. The Leader next an- 
nounced it for March 21, promising an evening of "thrilling 
interest." ^ But even this announcement failed to attract; it 
was a "slim attendance" which the newspapers recorded the 
next day. The reporters were there, however, and to them we 
owe full accounts of the meeting. One of these, that of the 
Plain Dealer,^ is very "journalistic," as may be judged from 
the following description of Brown from the pen of "Artemus 
Ward," then the Plain Dealer's city editor: 

"He is a medium-sized, compactly-built and wiry man, and as 
quick as a cat in his movements. His hair is of a salt and pepper hue 



392 JOHN BROWN 

and as stiff as bristles, he has a long, waving, milk-white goatee, 
which gives him a somewhat patriarchal appearance, his eyes are 
gray and sharp. A man of pluck is Brown. You may bet on that. 
He shows it in his walk, talk, and actions. He must be rising sixty, 
and yet we believe he could lick a yard full of wild cats before break- 
fast and without taking off his coat. Turn him into a ring with nine 
Border Ruffians, four bears, six Injuns and a brace of bull pups, and 
we opine that ' the eagles of victory would perch on his banner.' We 
don't mean by this that he looks like a professional bruiser, who hits 
from the shoulder, but he looks like a man of iron and one that few 
men would like to 'sail into.'" 

To "Artemus Ward," Kagi appeared but a "melancholy 
brigand;" some of his statements were to "Ward" "no doubt 
false and some shamefully true. It was 'Bleeding Kansas' 
once more." 

On Brown's statements the friendly and unfriendly re- 
porters agreed pretty well. The Plain Dealer's representative 
thus summarized the salient points of the address: 

"He [Brown] had never, during his connection with Kansas mat- 
ters, killed anybody. He had never destroyed or injured the pro- 
perty of any individual unless he knew him to be a violent enemy of 
the free-state men. All newspaper statements to the contrary were 
false. The Border Ruffians had created the war and he had looked 
upon it as right that they should defray the expenses of the war. 
He had told the young men that some things might be done as well 
as others, and they had done 'em. He had regarded the enemy's 
arms, horses, etc., as legitimate booty. He had never seen but one 
pro-slavery house on fire, but had seen free state villages on fire and 
in ashes. He had seen the ashes of his own children's homes, and one 
of his sons had been murdered — shot down like a dog — by Border 
Ruffians, the only provocation being that said son was a free state 
man." 

As to the raid into Missouri, this is the impression Brown's 
narration of it made upon the humorist, who was obviously 
sent to ridicule or run down the whole proceeding: 

" Brown's description of his trip to Westport and capture of eleven 
niggers was refreshingly cool, and it struck us, while he was giving 
it, that he would make his jolly fortune by letting himself out as 
an Ice Cream Freezer. He meant this invasion as a direct blow 
at slavery. He did n't disguise it — he wanted the audience to dis- 
tinctly understand it. With a few picked men he visited Westport 
in the night and liberated eleven slaves. He also 'liberated' a large 
number of horses, oxen, mules and furniture at the same time. . . . 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 393 

A man lately from the Missouri Border was present and stated that 
there was 'a great antipathy against him (Brown) down there,' and 
the old gentleman cheerfully said he thought it 'highly probable.' 
On being asked if he should return to Kansas, he said it 'depended 
on circumstances.' He had never driven men out of the Territory. 
He did not believe in that kind of warfare. He believed in settling 
the matter on the spot, and using the enemy as he would fence stakes 
— drive them into the ground where they would become permanent 
settlers. A resolution approving of Brown's course in Kansas was 
introduced and adopted by the audience. He thanked the audience 
very sincerely, although he was perfectly sure his course was right 
before." 

Brown's statement in regard to the "fence stakes" was thus 
reported in the more sober account of the Leader of March 22, 
He "had never by his own action driven out pro-slavery men 
from the territory, but if occasion demanded it he would drive 
them into the ground like a fence-stake where they would 
remain permanent settlers." Of great significance in connec- 
tion with Pottawatomie is the friendly Leader's record of his 
saying that "he had never killed anybody, although on some 
occasions he had shown his young men with him, how some 
things might be done as well as others, and they had done the 
business." Financially, the lecture was a great failure: only 
about fifty persons were present to pay a quarter apiece for 
admission;^ and the hall had to be paid for, as well as the 
advertising. As for the horses. Brown described one of them 
as a "beautiful racker, of very decided wind," while the other 
horse had "many excellent points;" but like the mule, both 
were somewhat thin. "They brought an excellent price," 
Brown afterwards said.^ Probably these animals were shipped 
from Springdale to Cleveland. Brown, in selling them, freely 
announced that they were of Missouri origin, and that he 
could give no sound title thereto." "They are Abolition 
horses," he told the purchaser, and when asked how he knew, 
he responded, " I converted them." This action, like his adver- 
tising and holding his lectures, well illustrated his contempt 
for the United States authorities. For, as they walked the 
streets of Cleveland, Brown and Kagi saw numerous posters 
announcing In large type the President's offer of $250, and 
that of $3000 of the Governor of Missouri, to any one w^ho 
would arrest and detain Brown where he might be given Into 



394 JOHN BROWN 

the hands of the Missouri authorities. One of these posters 
was conspicuously placed less than two blocks from the City 
Hotel in which Brown and Kagi stayed, the hotel itself being 
but four blocks from the office of the United States marshal 
who had put up the posters.^ The explanation of Brown's 
immunity is probably that public sentiment in Cleveland was 
too strongly against the South to encourage the marshal to 
claim the $3250 reward. 

On March 25, Brown was able to send from Ashtabula $150, 
part of the proceeds of the horse-sale, to his family at North 
Elba,^ with the request that they purchase with it a team of 
young oxen, and that the balance be saved unless they were 
actually in debt. While at West Andover, he received from 
Joshua R. Giddings, the brave anti-slavery Congressman 
from Ohio, an invitation to come to Jefferson and speak in the 
Congregational church at that place. Mr. Giddings had seen 
the Cleveland accounts of Brown's lecture and, as he after- 
wards stated,^ "our people had felt a great desire to see him, 
and we were a little surprised that he did not call at our 
village, which is the seat of justice for the county, as it was 
said he had visited a son who was living in that vicinity." 
Brown went to Jefferson on March 26, to arrange for his lec- 
ture, and spoke on the following day, after the regular church 
service. ''Republicans and Democrats," said Mr. Giddings, 
"all listened to his story with attention. ... He gave us 
clearly to understand that he held to the doctrines of the 
Christian religion as they were enunciated by the Saviour." 
After Brown finished, Mr. Giddings made an appeal for con- 
tributions, and ' ' every Democrat as well as Republican present 
gave something." At the close of the meeting, Brown went 
to Mr. Giddings's house to take tea, and had a long talk with 
the Congressman and his wife. Neither then, nor in his lec- 
ture, did Brown give the slightest hint as to the Harper's 
Ferry plan, or refer to his associates or arms. Mr. Giddings, 
whose purse always had something in it for the fugitive slave, 
gave a modest three dollars to Brown for his work, which sum 
was swelled to three hundred dollars by reports from Harper's 
Ferry after the raid, in the effort to connect Mr, Giddings and 
other Republican politicians with Brown's attack. Kagi soon 
returned to Cleveland, where he busied himself particularly 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 395 

with the Oberlin-WelHngton rescuers then in jail for taking 
an escaped slave away from slave-catchers armed with United 
States warrants. Kagi also carried on considerable corre- 
spondence with the men enlisted for the raid.^" 

To his family Brown wrote on April 7, from Kingsville, 
Ohio, that he had had a severe recurrence of his malarial 
trouble, "with a terrible gathering" in his head which had 
entirely prostrated him for a week.^"^ He was, however, mend- 
ing and hoped to be on his way home soon. In conclusion he 
added: "My best wish for you all is that you may truly love 
God; & his commandments." By April 10 he was well enough 
to leave for Peterboro, where he arrived on April 11, with 
Jeremiah Anderson, after a brief visit, en route, to Rochester. 
On this last visit, so Mr. Smith's biographer narrates: ^^ 

"Brown held a public meeting, at which he told the story of his 
exploit in carrying a number of slaves from Missouri to Canada and 
asked help to prosecute the work on a larger scale. Mr. Smith was 
moved to tears by the veteran's eloquence — headed the subscrip- 
tion paper with four hundred dollars, and made an impressive 
speech, in which he said — ' If I were asked to point out — I will say 
it in his presence — to point out the man in all this world I think 
most truly a Christian, I would point out John Brown. I was once 
doubtful in my own mind as to Captain Brown's course. I now 
approve of it heartily, having given my mind to it more of late'" — 

a very different attitude from that assumed by Mr. Smith six 
months later. Encouraged by his stay there. Brown was at 
Westport on the i6th,i^ awaiting a conveyance to take him 
to his home at North Elba, which he reached on the 19th. 
Even the splendid Adirondack air did not break up the recur- 
ring ague with which he was still paying for his exposure to 
the Kansas elements. The trouble with his head alsbreturned, 
so that he wrote on April 25 to Kagi that he had not yet been 
able to attend to any business, and would not be able to for 
another week or longer. "^^ On May 2 he was still at North 
Elba, as his memorandum-book shows, and four days later 
was at Troy,!^ buying provisions and supplies for his family 
before the final parting. On May 7 he spent his last birthday 
at Concord with Mr. Sanborn. ^^ 

Even before Brown's arrival, Mr. Sanborn had been faith- 
fully laboring for him. To raise more money for his venture 



396 JOHN BROWN 

was no easy task, but thanks to the two benefactors, Stearns 
and Smith, the two thousand dollars Brown now needed 
before finally embarking on his enterprise were in hand by the 
end of the month of May, Indeed, the skies had cleared 
greatly when he reached Boston. Forbes had subsided, or at 
least had shot his bolt. He had revealed Brown's plot to many 
who should not have heard of it; but the truth itself carried 
no conviction, it seemed so fantastic. Moreover, the ruse of 
Brown's returning to Kansas had worked successfully. His 
raid on Missouri had been widely advertised; he was still, 
in the public mind, associated with Kansas, There was, there- 
fore, no reason why the great blow should not be struck, for 
which the leader was so eager. It was only a question of 
funds. As early as March 14, Mr. Sanborn was writing to Mr, 
Higginson and asking if admiration of Brown's exploits in 
the raid on Missouri would not loosen the strings of some 
Worcester purses, ^^ Gerrit Smith then proposed to raise one 
thousand dollars and Judge Hoar perhaps fifty dollars. On 
May 30, Mr, Sanborn wrote: " Capt, B, has been here for three 
weeks, and is soon to leave — having got his $2000 secured. 
He is at the U, S. Hotel ; and you ought to see him before he 
goes, for now he is to begin." But Mr, Higginson was unable 
to go to Boston, so Mr, Sanborn reported to him on June 4: 

" Brown has set out on his expedition, having got some $800 from 
all sources except from Mr. Stearns, and from him the balance of 
$2000; Mr. Stearns being a man who 'having put his hand to the 
plough turneth not back.' B. left Boston for Springfield and New 
York on Wednesday morning at 8| and Mr. Stearns has probably 
gone to N, Y. today to make final arrangements for him. He means 
to be on the ground as soon as he can — perhaps so as to begin by 
the 4th July. He could not say where he shall be for a few weeks — 
but a letter addressed to him under cover to his son John Jr. West 
Andover, Ashtabula Co. Ohio, [would reach him.] This point is not 
far from where B. will begin, and his son will communicate with him. 
Two of his sons will go with him. He is desirous of getting someone 
to go to Canada and collect recruits for him among the fugitives, 
with H. Tubman, or alone, as the case may be, & urged me to go, — 
but my school will not let me. Last year he engaged some persons & 
heard of others, but he does not want to lose time by going there 
himself now. I suggested you to him, . . . Now is the time to help 
in the movement, if ever, for within the next two months the experi- 
ment will be made." 




FRANK 13. SA.VKURN 




GERRIT SMITH 




T. W. HIGGINSON 




THEODORE PARKER SAMUEL G. HOWE 

JOHN BROWN'S NORTHERN SUPPORTERS 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 397 

Mr. Higglnson did not feel that he could do much this 
time. As he wrote to Brown, he had drawn so largely on his 
Worcester friends for similar purposes, that he found it hard 
to raise additional sums, particularly as so many of Worcester's 
best men were facing business difficulties.^^ Then Mr. Hig- 
ginson had not gotten over his disappointment of the previous 
year. "My own loss of confidence," he wrote, "is also in the 
way — loss of confidence not in you, but in the others who 
are concerned in the measure; Those who were so easily dis- 
heartened last spring, may be again deterred now." "It had 
all begun to seem to me rather chimerical," Mr. Higginson 
subsequently stated. ^^ He heard occasionally from Mr. San- 
born during the summer. When he got the news of the raid 
on Harper's Ferry, it came as a surprise, so far as the locality 
was concerned. "Naturally," he declared, "my first feeling 
was one of remorse, that the men who had given him money 
and arms should not actually have been by his side." 

The other conspirators besides Mr. Higginson were still 
ignorant of the precise locality Brown had chosen for his 
attack; but were perfectly aware of Its general outlines. Mr. 
Sanborn positively states that out of a little over four thousand 
dollars which passed through the hands of the secret com- 
mittee, or was known to them to have been contributed, "at 
least $3800 were given with a clear knowledge of the use to 
which it would be put." -"^ During Brown's last stay in Bos- 
ton he met the members of the secret committee frequently. 
From his memorandum-book it would seem that their first 
conference was on May 10, at three o'clock, at Dr. Howe's 
office. Theodore Parker, having gone to Europe in a vain effort 
to improve his failing health, was not present. The burden of 
the undertaking rested, therefore, upon Dr. Howe, Mr. San- 
born and George L. Stearns. On May 16, Brown was able to 
write encouragingly to Kagi, to John, Jr., Owen and Jason. 
To Kagi he said that he was "very weak," but that "there 
is scarce a doubt but that all will set right In a few days more, 
so that I can be on my way back." ^i Indeed, his corre- 
spondence at this time was very voluminous, although little 
of it has survived. To his small daughter Ellen, in North 
Elba, then not five years old, he sent on May 13, from 
Boston, the following note: ^^ 



398 JOHN BROWN 

My Dear Daughter Ellen, 

I will send you a short letter. 

I want very much to have you grow good every day. To have 
you learn to mind your mother very quick ; & sit very still at the 
table; & to mind what all older persons say to you that is right. I 
hope to see you soon again ; & if I should bring some little thing 
that will please you ; it would not be very strange. I want you to 
be uncommon good natured. God bless you my child. 

Your Affectionate Father 

John Brown. 

In the letter to his wife of the same date, in which this note 
was enclosed. Brown wrote: ^s "I feel now very confident of 
ultimate success; but have to be patient. . . ." To Augustus 
Wattles, to the Rev. Mr. Adair, Congressman Giddings, Fred- 
erick Douglass, and others, w^ent missives at this period. ^^ 

Despite his recurrent ague, he was able to make some new 
friends and to meet the old. At Concord, the day after his 
arrival at Sanborn's, he addressed another meeting in the 
Town Hall, where Bronson Alcott heard him for the first and 
only time. Mr. Alcott recorded later: ^^ 

"Our people heard him with favor. He impressed me as a person 
of surpassing sense, courage, and religious earnestness. A man of 
reserves, yet he inspired confidence in his integrity and good judg- 
ment. He seemed superior to any legal traditions, able to do his own 
thinking; was an idealist, at least in matters of State, if not on all 
points of his religious faith. He did not conceal his hatred of Slavery, 
and less his readiness to strike a blow for freedom at the fitting 
moment. I thought him equal to anything he should dare: the man 
to do the deed necessary to be done with the patriot's zeal, the 
martyr's temper and purpose. ... I am accustomed to divine 
men's tempers by their voices; — his was vaulting and metallic, 
suggesting repressed force and indomitable will. . . . Not far from 
sixty, then, he seemed alert and agile, resolute and ready for any 
crisis. I thought him the manliest of men and the type and synonym 
of the just." 

An acquaintance made in this month of May was that of 
John M. Forbes, a public-spirited and broad-minded business 
man of Boston. Mr. Forbes noted that there was a "little 
touch of insanity" about Brown's "glittering gray-blue eyes;" 
"he repelled, almost with scorn, my suggestion that firmness 
at the ballot-box by the North and West might avert the 
storm; and said that it had passed the stage of ballots, and 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 399 

nothing but bayonets and bullets could settle it now." ^s Mr. 
Forbes had invited several friends in to hear the talk, besides 
Mr. Sanborn, who came with Brown, and, when the hour for 
retiring came, bade Brown good-by, as the latter was to take 
the earliest train for Boston in the morning. Mr. Forbes 
relates an interesting incident which closed Brown's stay in 
his home: 

"When our parlor girl got up early, to open the house, she was 
startled by finding the grim old soldier sitting bolt upright in the 
front entry, fast asleep; and when her light awoke him, he sprang up 
and put his hand into his breast pocket, where I have no doubt his 
habit of danger led him to carry a revolver. . , . By an odd chance, 
the very next day Governor Stewart, the pro-slavery Governor of 
Missouri (who had set the price of $3000 on John Brown's head), 
appeared on railroad business, and he too passed the night at Mil- 
ton, little dreaming who had preceded him in my guest room." 

Another distinguished man whom John Brown met was 
Senator Henry Wilson. They were introduced at a dinner of 
the Bird Club, at which Stearns and Howe were also present, 
but there seems to have been a marked lack of cordiality in the 
greeting. At least, Senator Wilson gave the following account 
of it to the Mason Committee: " 

"I was introduced to him and he, I think, did not recollect my 
name, and I stepped aside. In a moment, after speaking to some- 
body else, he came up again and, I think, he said to me that he did 
not understand my name when it was mentioned, and he then said, 
in a very calm but firm tone, to me: 'I understand you do not ap- 
prove of my course;' referring, as I supposed, to his going into Mis- 
souri and getting slaves and running them off. It was said with a 
great deal of firmness of manner, and it was the first salutation after 
speaking to me. I said I did not. He said, in substance, I under- 
stand from some of my friends here you have spoken in condem- 
nation of it. I said, I had; I believed it to be a very great injury to 
the anti-slavery cause; that I regarded every illegal act, and every 
imprudent act, as being against it. I said that if this action had been 
a year or two before, it might have been followed by the invasion of 
Kansas by a large number of excited people on the border, and a 
great many lives might have been lost. He said he thought differ- 
ently, and he believed he had acted right, and that it would have a 
good influence, or words to that effect." 

It was on the same day of his conversation with Senator 
Wilson that he visited his benefactor, A. A. Lawrence, who, 



400 JOHN BROWN 

as his diary shows, ^^ had cooled off considerably in his admi- 
ration for " the Miles Standish of Kansas." This is the entry 
relating to the call: 

" Captain John Brown of Osawatomie came to see me with one of 
his rangers [Jeremiah Anderson]. He has been stealing negroes and 
running them off from Missouri. He has a monomania on that sub- 
ject, I think, and would be hanged if he were taken in a slave State. 
He has allowed his beard to grow since I saw him last, which changes 
his appearance entirely, as it is almost white and very long. He and 
his companion both have the fever and ague, somewhat, probably 
a righteous visitation for their fanaticism," 

While calling at a friend's house during this stay in Boston, 
on a Sunday evening, John Brown also met John A. Andrew, 
then a prominent lawyer of Boston and soon to be the able War 
Governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Andrew was so impressed 
with Brown, whom he described as a "very magnetic person," 
that he sent him twenty-five dollars. ^^ " I did it," he testified 
the next year, "because I felt ashamed, after I had seen the 
old man and talked with him . . . that I had never contrib- 
uted anything directly towards his assistance, as one whom 
I thought had sacrificed and suffered so much for the cause 
of freedom." This chance meeting stood Brown in good stead 
later, when it came to providing the Virginia State prisoner 
with counsel. His last public appearance, as a speaker, in the 
North, was at a meeting of the Church Anti-Slavery Society, 
at Tremont Temple, in the last week in May. He sat on the 
stage, and was called upon to speak, but the large audience 
manifesting an eagerness to hear rather the orator of the day. 
Dr. Cheever, Brown broke off abruptly after saying a sen- 
tence or two, remarking, as he sat down, that he was more 
accustomed to action than to speaking. ^'^ 

On June 3, 1859, this pleasant interlude in Brown's life 
drew to its close. Thereafter every energy was bent upon 
"troubling Israel "at Harper's Ferry, and there was much to be 
endured, in the sense of hardships and anxiety, during the 
period of preparation of four months now before him. From 
Boston he went to Collinsville, to put through the purchase 
of the pikes. He appeared at Mr. Blair's door as soon as he 
could get there from the train and said to him: " I have been 
unable, sir, to fulfill my contract with you up to this time; 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 401 

I have met with various disappointments; now I am able 
to do so." " Blair was disinclined to go on with the job. 
"What good," he asked, "can they be if they are finished; 
Kansas matters are all settled, and of what earthly use can 
they be to you now?" Brown answered that if they were 
finished up, he could dispose of them in some way, but as they 
were, they were good for nothing. Finally, Blair agreed for 
four hundred and fifty dollars to finish the weapons, if he 
could find a skilled man to do the work, as he was now himself 
too busy with other orders. Brown came again early on June 
4, and gave him a check for one hundred dollars, and fifty 
dollars in cash. Three days later, writing from Troy, Brown 
sent three hundred dollars more to Mr. Blair, who found the 
workman he needed, with the result that the pikes were in 
Brown's hands in Chambersburg early in the following Sep- 
tember, their receipt being acknowledged to Blair in a letter 
dated September 15. 

From Troy, Brown went to Keene, New York, after making 
some purchases for his family, where he wrote to Kagi on 
June 9 that he was on his way to Ohio, after being "midling 
successful." ^^ The next day he was at Westport,^^ on his way 
in to North Elba, where he remained less than a week. He 
brought in with him many things for his family which he had 
purchased on going to Massachusetts and on his way back; 
and in the brief interval of this, his final stay in his mountain 
home, he did everything possible for the comfort of his family. 
There is no record of their parting, a last earthly one for sev- 
eral. Nor is it probable that there was much emotion dis- 
played; the Browns were neither emotional nor demonstrative, 
and their iron-willed and stern father had before this returned 
from venturesome undertakings in which his life was at stake. 
More than that, they were, as a family, ready for the sacrifice 
for which they had been trained and prepared these many 
years. It was probably on Thursday, June 16, that the parting 
occurred, for two days later, June 18, Brown's diary shows 
that he was at West Andover, Ohio.^^ " Borrowed John's old 
compass, and left my own, together with Gurley's book, with 
him at West Andover; also borrowed his small Jacob staff; 
also gave him for expenses $15, write him, under cover to 
Horace Lindsley, West Andover." On the 23d of June he 



402 JOHN BROWN 

sent to his family, from Akron, his first report since leaving 
them.^^ Hudson and Cherry Valley were other places visited 
by Brown in Ohio, and in nearly every one he seems to have 
discussed with one or more friends the active service he now 
contemplated — usually in general terms. He did not hesi- 
tate to say that he had arms and men, and was contemplating 
an attack upon Virginia; but those who remember those con- 
versations are certain that there was no mention of Harper's 
Ferry, or of an attack upon United States property. ^^ 

He had, of course, long talks with his sons, Owen and John, 
Jr. The latter was engaged in drumming-up men and calling 
together the faithful of the previous year's band. This process 
went on during the summer. A surprisingly large number of 
persons knew or suspected what was going on, yet no inkling 
of it leaked out from this staunch anti-slavery neighborhood. 
From Ohio Brown went into Pennsylvania. He reached Pitts- 
burg the same day he wrote to his family from Akron, for 
there is a letter to Kagi in his handwriting dated in Pittsburg 
on that date, and signed "S. Monroe." " He was at Bedford 
Springs with his son Oliver, who had accompanied him from 
North Elba, on June 26, and at Bedford on June 27, going 
thence to Chambersburg for a two or three days' stay there 
in the role of "I. Smith & Sons," Owen being the other son 
with him.^^ On the 30th he left for the future seat of war, 
with both sons and the ever-faithful Jeremiah Anderson, who 
in his rustic garb had attracted much attention when walking 
the streets of Boston with his equally rustic leader. To Kagi, 
Brown thus announced his departure : ^^ 

Chambersburg, Pa, 30th June, 1859. 
John Henrie Esqr 
Dear Sir 

We leave here to day for Harpers Ferry; (via) Hagerstown. 
When you get there you had best look on the Hotel register for 
I. Smith & Sons without making much enquiry. We shall be look- 
ing for cheap lands near the Rail Road in all probability. You can 
write I Smith & Sons at Harpers Ferry should you need to do so. 

Yours in truth 

I Smith 

At Hagerstown the four men spent the night at the Hagers- 
town tavern,^" not dreaming that a little more than three 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 403 

years later this small hotel would be filled with the North- 
ern men wounded at Antietam in that war against slavery 
which the "old man" was so resolutely predicting. From 
Hagerstown their route led them to Harper's Ferry, per- 
haps partly on foot, for it was apparently not until July 3 
that they reached their destination by train and were able to 
obtain cheap board at Sandy Hook, a small village one mile 
beyond Harper's Ferry on the Maryland side.^^ Then the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army established under the Pro- 
visional Government was on his battlefield; the contest be- 
tween one dauntless spirit and the institution of slavery which 
had so long dominated American social and political life was 
on in earnest. 

The 1859 anniversary of the Independence of the United 
States, John Brown and his three companions spent recon- 
noitring in Maryland. It was about two-thirds of a mile 
beyond Harper's Ferry that John C. Unseld,^^ a resident in 
that neighborhood, met them between eight and nine o'clock 
in the morning and asked them if they were prospecting for 
gold and silver. " No," replied Brown, "we are not, we are out 
looking for land ; we want to buy land ; we have a little money, 
but we want to make it go as far as we can." After asking 
the price of land in that vicinity and expressing surprise at 
Its costliness, and other desultory conversation, they parted, 
Unseld going on into Harper's Ferry. On returning from the 
town he again met them, and Brown expressed his satisfaction 
with what he had seen and asked whether there was any farm 
for sale in the neighborhood. Unseld informed him that the 
heirs of a Dr. Kennedy had one for sale, four miles from where 
they were talking. Brown then expressed the opinion that it 
would be better for him to rent rather than to buy, and, after 
declining an invitation to dinner at Mr. Unseld's, went on 
toward the farm. He was not long in making up his mind to 
take it, went to Sharpsburg, saw those in charge of the pro- 
perty, and rented for only thirty-five dollars the two houses, 
pasture for a cow and a horse, and firewood, all until the first 
day of March, i860. To Unseld he stated also that his real 
business was buying fat cattle and driving them on to the 
State of New York for disposal there. Others In the neighbor- 
hood retained the Impression that the newcomers were really 



404 JOHN BROWN 

mineral prospectors, particularly as Brown sometimes ap- 
peared with surveying instruments and carried a sensitive 
magnetic needle in a small bucket. ^^ Naturally, there was at 
first much curiosity in the neighborhood, but it gradually 
waned until, later in the fall, it waxed again. 

As for the Kennedy Farm, it is about five miles from Har- 
per's Ferry. The main house, since altered and enlarged, was 
by no means commodious. There was a basement kitchen 
and storeroom, a living-room and bedrooms on the second 
story, and an attic in which some of the men slept. The house 
stands three hundred yards from the road, on the left as one 
approaches from Harper's Ferry, and was about six hun- 
dred yards from the simple cabin across the road, the second 
house leased, since destroyed. This stood about three hun- 
dred yards from the road, on the right-hand side, facing the 
main house. The place suited Brown exactly, and, as soon as 
the lease was signed, he moved his men up from Sandy Hook 
to dwell in it. After the occupation it became apparent that 
the farm was, after all, too near the highway, and that the 
neighbors were too inquisitive for comfort. They w^ere con- 
stantly "dropping in," after the friendly Southern fashion, 
and could not understand why they were not asked into 
the house. ■^^ Mr. Unseld was once urged to come in, but as 
Brown had steadfastly refused to enter his home, Mr. Unseld 
declined to enter Brown's, or Smith's, as the Northerner was 
everywhere known. 

Even before he was settled on the farm, Brown came to the 
conclusion that he must have women with him at Harper's 
Ferry, in order to avert suspicion while the arms were being 
moved in and the company assembled. He therefore soon 
sent Oliver Brown back to North Elba with the following 
letter to his wife, with the misleading date-line of Chambers- 
burg, July 5:" 

Dear Wife 

I would be most glad to have you & Anne come on with Oliver, & 
make me a visit of a few weeks while I am prepareing to build. I 
find it will be indispensable to have some women of our own family 
with us for [a] short time. I dont see how we can get along with- 
out, & on that account have sent Oliver at a good deal of expence to 
come back with you; & if you cannot come, I would be glad to have 










THE CABIN ACKO>.> ililv K. 'AD 
FROM THE FARMHOUSE 







SCHOOL-HOUSE GUARDED BY 
lOHX E. COOK 



7 

4=^ ^ 



tar ~ J^^ 






/ 







^S<«.^S€. 



I ."'l 



*^ 



.j^/^».;.ir*-^ 



THE HOUSE AT KENNEDV FARM, MARYLAND 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 405 

Martha & Anne come on. You will have no more exposure here than 
at North Elba; & can return after a short visit. I would not have 
you fail to come on by any means. I do not think you need hesitate 
to leave Ellen ; with Martha, & Sarah ; & I think you would not find 
it an unpleasant visit. You need not bring anything but your plain 
clothes, & a few Sheets, & Pillow-cases. What you could pack in a 
single Trunk, & a clean bag; would be (I should think) quite suffi- 
cient. A few Towels, & something for milk strainers might come. 
Have your bag; or bags marked, /, S; plain. I want you to come 
right off. It will be likely to prove the most valuable service you can 
ever render to the world. Do not consult your neighbors at all about 
it. Oliver can explain to you the reasons why we want you now. 
Should Oliver be too unwell; I want Salmon, or Watson to come on 
with you; if they go right back; at once. One might come & go in 
a little more than a Week. 

Your Affectionat Husband 

I. Smith 

Mrs. "Smith" was not ready to leave her home and her 
young children, although she wished for her husband "health 
and success in the great and good cause you are engaged in;"*^ 
but Martha, Oliver's wife, and Annie promptly responded to 
the call. Both were very young, seventeen and sixteen years 
old respectively. Oliver accompanied them, and Watson soon 
followed. Martha was cook and housekeeper, all unsuspect- 
ing of the tragic end so soon to copie. to her boy-husband 
— he was not twenty — and herself, and, until the raid, cer- 
tain that W^atson would shortly rejoin her at North Elba. 
By Saturday, July 16, the two young girls were at or near 
the Kennedy Farm, boarding with a farmer named Nicholls 
from their arrival until they moved in and began house- 
keeping on the igth.^^ Young as they were, their services 
were indeed as valuable as John Brown had foreseen they 
would be. Mere girls, they had old heads upon their shoul- 
ders. They filled their arduous posts well and bravely, and 
fully won the respect of the hardy men as the long summer 
wore slowly on. 

Pass it did before anything happened, — much to the dis- 
appointment of some in the enterprise. To live in the open 
in the Virginia mountains in the fall, to say nothing of the 
dead of winter, requires a venturesome man; the prospect was 
enough to daunt the toughest campaigner of Kansas plains, 
to say nothing of slaves with the negro dislike of the intense 



4o6 JOHN BROWN 

cold. There was every reason, therefore, why the blow should 
have been struck in midsummer. But one thing after another 
delayed it. The pikes did not reach the Kennedy Farm until 
well on in September. The men dropped in slowly, and mean- 
while the two thousand dollars with which Brown had set out 
from Boston melted away so that he was compelled in August 
to appeal once more for money — three hundred dollars — 
to the ever-helpful Boston friends.*^ His own uneasiness was 
manifest on July 10 in the following letter to Kagi, then in 
Chambersburg : ^^ 

"I wish you to give such explanations to our friends as to our 
situation here; as after advising with Owen you will be able to do. 
We can of course do nothing to purpose till our freight is mostly 
received. You know also that it takes a great deal longer to start 
some folks than it does others. It will be distressing in many ways 
to have a lot of hands for many days out of employ. We must have 
time to get on our freight ; & also to get on some who are at a dis- 
tance; before calling on those who are ready & waiting. We must 
make up our lot of hands as nearly at one, & the same time ; as pos- 
sible. Do not use much paper to put names of persons & plans 
uppon. Send back word about the price of board with you." 

Kagi had intended to be at Kennedy Farm, but he had 
hardly stepped off of the train at Harper's Ferry before he 
was recognized by some one who had known him during his 
residence in the vicinity.^'' Hence it was decided to station 
him at Chambersburg as the forwarding agent for the sup- 
plies, which were all sent there, Owen Brown acting at first 
as teamster on the night trips between the two places, and as 
pilot for some of the recruits as they joined. By July 12, 
Brown instructed Kagi to order Moffet and Tidd to go to 
Chambersburg.^^ Tidd answered the call, but Moffet had 
already written on June 20 that he could not come.^^ 

John Brown, Jr., was unfortunately trusted with the for- 
warding of the arms, as he was not relied upon for active ser- 
vice. In May, 1858,^3 he had written that he had been "sub- 
ject to a period of the most depressing melancholy," and that 
he was "almost disqualified for anything which is engrossing 
in its nature." His terrible experience in Kansas was still 
hanging over him, so that he was little fitted for the position 
of Ohio agent for the expedition. As such he reported on July 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 407 

23, 1859," to Kagi, that he had the day before forwarded to 
the canal at Hartstown, Pennsylvania, just across the Ohio 
line, "11 Boxes Hardware & Castings from King & Brothers. 
They are numbered and marked thus *i to 11- By R. Rd. Via 
Pittsburg & Harrisburg; I. Smith & Sons, Chambersburg, 
Pa; Shall send balance Hardware, &c., on Monday next — 
*8 and *9 are those which were on store with E. A. F.[obes] at 
Lindenville; Mr. Smith will remember." On the following 
Wednesday, John Brown, Jr., reported the despatch of the 
other four boxes of arms, and a little later six boxes and a chest 
of household supplies were sent on their way." On August 
II, Kagi reported ^^ the arrival of the fifteen boxes of arms 
at Chambersburg, with freight charges of eighty-five dollars 
attached, so "very high" in Brown's opinion as to make him 
write at once to his son : " 

" I begin to be apprehensive of getting into a tight spot for want 
of a little more funds, notwithstanding my anxiety to make my 
money hold out. As it will cost no more expense for you to solicit 
for me a little more assistance while attending to your other busi- 
ness, say two or three hundred dollars in New York, — drafts 
payable to the order of I. Smith & Sons, — will you not sound 
my Eastern or Western friends in regard to it? . . . It is terribly 
humiliating to me to begin soliciting of friends again; but as the 
harvest opens before me with increasing encouragements, I may not 
allow a feeling of delicacy to deter me from asking the Httle further 
aid I expect to need." 

From Chambersburg the arms were laboriously transported 
to the Kennedy Farm by a young "Pennsylvania Dutchman " 
with a large freight wagon. ^^ For the ordinary supplies and 
the household belongings, the small covered wagon purchased 
from a neighbor was the means of transportation. After Owen 
was compelled to give up being teamster, either John Brown 
himself, Watson Brown or Jeremiah Anderson made the trips 
to and from Chambersburg. "They had a horse and a mule, 
which they hitched to the wagon alternately, one riding in the 
wagon and the other on horseback, a short distance either 
before or behind, to keep a look out for danger." People along 
the road gradually grew suspicious of this little wagon and 
its mounted escort, and often stopped them to ask questions 
about their business. ^^ 



r 



408 JOHN BROWN 

The conspirators were soon face to face with another 
danger besides the inquisitiveness of their neighbors, — their 
own loquaciousness and freedom of expression in their letters 
home. John E. Cook was the man Brown most dreaded, so 
far as looseness of tongue was concerned. He had married 
on April 18, 1859, Mary V. Kennedy, a resident of Harper's 
Ferry, and had secured a position as lock-tender on the old 
canal across the Potomac from the town.^° Cook from the 
beginning favored the plan of taking the town and arsenal, 
and obtained a good deal of information of value while his 
comrades were at the Kennedy Farm. He even wished to 
go about among the plantation negroes and give them vague 
hints of what was coming. "This," says Mrs. Annie Brown 
Adams, now the sole survivor of those who gathered at the 
Kennedy Farm, "father positively forbade his doing. Father 
lived in constant fear that Cook would make a confidant of 
someone who would betray us, all that summer. He never 
doubted his bravery, his honesty, or good intentions, but 
considered him very impulsive and indiscreet." But while 
the others were in no danger of talking too much, their pens 
were by no means always well controlled. William H. Lee- 
man, for instance, wrote to his mother, two weeks before the 
raid: ^^ 

"I am now in a Southern Slave 5/a/eand before I leave it, it will 
be a. free State, Mother. . . . Yes, mother, I am waring with Slavery 
the greatest Curse that ever infested America; In Explanation of my 
Absence from you for so long a time I would tell you that for three 
years I have been Engaged in a Secret Association of as gallant 
fellows as ever puled a trigger with the sole purpose of the Exter- 
mination of Slavery." 

Letters similar in tenor passed from the members of the 
expedition throughout the summer, until finally John Brown 
wrote the only wrathy letter to be found in all his voluminous 
correspondence. It was dated at the Kennedy Farm, August 
II, 1859, and addressed to J. Henrie [Kagi] at Chambers- 
burg: ^2 

" I got along Tuesday evening all right ; with letters &c. I do hope 
all corresponding except on business of the Co : will be droped for the 
present. If everyone must write some girl ; or some other extra friend 
telling, or shoing our location; & telling {as some have done) all about 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 409 

our matters ; we might as well get the whole published at once, in 
the New York Herald. Any person is a stupid Fool who expects 
his friends to keep /or him; that which he cannot keep himself. All 
our friends have each got their special friends ; and they again have 
theirs ; and it would not be right to lay the burden of keeping a 
secret on any one; at the end of a long string. I coul[di tell you of 
some reasons I have for feeling rather keenly on this point. I do not 
say this on account of any tale bearing that I accuse any of you of. 
Three more hands came on from North E. on Saturday last. Be sure 
to let me know of anything of interest." 

A special reason for vexation and anxiety Brown had ex- 
pressed in a letter to his son on August 6. To the defection 
of Parsons and Moffet was then added the news of that of 
George Gill, Secretary of State of the Provisional Govern- 
ment, who had been so near to Brown during the long trip 
with the slaves. Then, a man named Henry Carpenter, of 
Medina County, Ohio, w^ho had promised to join, lost heart 
after starting and turned back. " I hope," wrote the leader,*''^ 
"George G. will so far redeem himself as to try: & do his duty 
after all. I shall rejoice over '(7we that repenteth.' . . . I was 
sorry about the mistake by which Mr. C. was parted from 
O. on the way back. He has not come on ; & we suppose he 
found his way to you again. Every thing seems exactly right; 
& will be so, I have no doubt; if our own imprudence & folly 
do not secure a failure." Brown's own circumspection appears 
from the following letter, quite characteristic of this Kennedy 
Farm period: 

Chambersburg, Pa, 27th July, 1859. 
Dear Wife & Children All. 

I write to say that we are all well; & that I think Watson, & D. 
had not best set out until we write again; & not until sufficient hay 
has been secured to winter all the stock ivell. To be buying hay in 
the Spring; or last of the winter is ruinous: & there is 710 prospect of 
our getting our freight on; so as to be ready to go to work under 
some little time yet. We will give you timely notice. When you 
write enclose first in a small envelope put a stamp on it; seal it, & 
direct it to I. Smith & Sons Harpers ferry, Va; then enclose it under a 
Stamped Envelope; zvhich direct to John Henrie Chamber shurg. Pa. 
I need not say do all your directing & enclosing at home ; ^ not at 
the Post OfHce. 

Your Affectionate Husband & Father 

I. Smith" 



410 JOHN BROWN 

But with at least eighty persons in the secret of the raid, 
it was inevitable that something should leak out. A dis- 
closure of the plans actually took place on August 25, when 
so high an official as the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, 
received this letter: ^^ 

Cincinnati, August 20. 

Sir: I have lately received information of a movement of so great 
importance that I feel it my duty to impart it to you without delay. 

I have discovered the existence of a secret association, having 
for its object the liberation of the slaves at the South by a general 
insurrection. The leader of the movement is " Old John Brow?t," 
late of Kansas. He has been in Canada during the winter, drilUng 
the negroes there, and they are only waiting his word to start for the 
South to assist the slaves. They have one of their leading men (a 
white man) in an armory in Maryland — where it is situated I have 
not been able to learn. As soon as everything is ready, those of their 
number who are in the Northern States and Canada are to come in 
small companies to their rendezvous, which is in the mountains in 
Virginia. They will pass down through Pennsylvania and Mary- 
land, and enter Virginia at Harper's Ferry. Brown left the North 
about three or four weeks ago, and will arm the negroes and strike 
the blow in a few weeks ; so that whatever is done must be done at 
once. They have a large quantity of arms at their rendezvous, and 
are probably distributing them already. 

As I am not fully in their confidence, this is all the information I 
can give you. I dare not sign my name to this, but trust you will not 
disregard the warnings on that account. 

So explicit a warning and so well written a letter might, it 
would seem, have roused the interest of the Secretary of War 
to the extent of a careful investigation. Mr. Floyd was at the 
Red Sweet Springs in Virginia when he received the letter. 
He was constantly receiving anonymous communications and 
destroying them. This one received more than the usual con- 
sideration, in that he preserved it. But one error in the letter, 
the reference to the arsenal in Maryland, Mr. Floyd after- 
wards said to the Mason Committee, "confused me a little." 
There being no armory in Maryland, he jumped to the con- 
clusion that there was nothing of truth in the entire epistle. 
" Besides," he declared, " I was satisfied in my own mind that 
a scheme of such wickedness and outrage could not be enter- 
tained by any citizens of the United States." After the raid, 
Mr. Floyd recalled the friendly warning and, feeling that John 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 411 

Brown's attack had more than local significance, had it pub- 
Hshed, " that the country might be put on their guard against 
anything Hke a concerted movement." Again John Brown 
had encountered good fortune. Had the easy-going Floyd 
connected the John Brown of the letter with the John Brow^n 
for whose apprehension the President of the United States 
was offering a reward of $250, he might at least have made 
some investigation at Harper's Ferry, and perhaps have pre- 
vented the attack by Increasing the guards. 

For a long time the authorship of the so-called "Floyd 
letter " was in doubt. The survivors of the attack on Harper's 
Ferry and their friends were naturally eager to find out who 
had played the traitor. Both Moffet and Realf were sus- 
pected, and also a Cincinnati editor, Edmund Babb by name. 
Not until comparatively recent years was the mystery ex- 
plained, when it appeared that the motive behind it was not 
one of hostility to Brown or friendliness to the South, but a 
desire to preserve Brown's life from his own folly by giving an 
alarm which would cause him to abandon his rash enterprise. 
"Our only thought," says the author of the letter, David J. 
Gue, "was to protect Brown from the consequences of his 
own rashness and devotion, without injuring him, or letting 
him fall into the hands of his enemies." ^^ In August, 1859, 
Mr. Gue with a brother, Benjamin F. Gue, and a cousin, 
A. L. Smith, of Buffalo, were residing in a log-cabin in Scott 
County, Iowa, twenty miles from Springdale, to which place 
they drove on August 13, in order to visit Moses Varney and 
other friends of their own Quaker persuasion. To Smith, 
on August 14, Varney revealed the details of Brown's plans, 
exclaiming: "Something must be done to save their lives. I 
cannot betray their confidence In me. Consult your friends. 
But do something!" That day, on their return. Smith In- 
formed the Gues, and they discussed at length plans of inter- 
vention, determined not to let Brown and his men rush Into 
death If they could help it. They could not betray Varney. 
They felt themselves young and inexperienced, yet dared not 
consult their elders. At last they determined to write two let- 
ters, from different localities, to the Secretary of War, giving 
facts enough to alarm him. This, they thought, would occa- 
sion an Increase of the guard at the Harper's Ferry arsenal. 



412 JOHN BROWN 

This Cook would see, would understand to mean that the 
authorities were informed, and would warn Brown, who would 
then lead his men away to safety. It was not easy to word 
a letter so as to command attention, while anonymous. Yet 
they wished to conceal their identity, in order not to be called 
on to testify further. So they gave Brown's name, thinking 
that his past record would gain credence for their story. 
Smith dated his letter Philadelphia, and enclosed it in a sealed, 
stamped envelope addressed to Mr. Floyd. This he enclosed 
to the Postmaster of Philadelphia and mailed it at Wheatland, 
Clinton County, Iowa. David J. Que addressed his to "J. B. 
Floyd, Sec'y of War," marked it " Private," enclosed it to the 
Postmaster of Cincinnati, and mailed it at Big Rock. This 
was the letter that became historic. They hoped to convey 
the idea of two persons, non-sympathizers with John Brown, 
who, at widely different places, had accidentally learned of the 
affair, and felt it a duty to warn the Government. The post- 
master at Cincinnati forwarded the letter to Mr. Floyd, but 
the missive sent to Philadelphia never reached its destination. 
Fortunately for his peace of mind, John Brown received no 
inkling of this well-meant effort to frustrate his life's ambi- 
tion. He had other worries in sufficiency to occupy him. The 
last financial question was, however, easily solved for him in 
August and September," and on the eve of the raid there 
arrived a well-to-do recruit, — the final one, — Francis J. 
Meriam, of Boston, who placed six hundred dollars in gold in 
the joint treasury. The faithful colored friend in Brooklyn, 
Mrs. Gloucester, forwarded another contribution of ten dol- 
lars through Frederick Douglass, ^^ and some other small gifts 
were probably received. Douglass brought Mrs. Gloucester's 
contribution to Chambersburg, when, at Brown's request, he 
met him there for a final conference on August 19, 20 and 21. 
Through Harry Watson, a colored Chambersburg agent of the 
Underground Railroad, of great service to Brown at this time, 
Douglass soon found the appointed rendezvous, in an old stone- 
quarry, and here Douglass, Shields Green, Kagi and Brown 
sat down to talk over the enterprise. The colored orator 
vehemently opposed the taking of the arsenal, when that plan 
was unfolded to him, and, according to his own story, char- 
acterized It as assuredly fatal to all engaged. ^^ "It would be 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 413 

an attack upon the federal government, and would array the 
whole country against us. ... I told him . . . that all his 
arguments, and all his descriptions of the place, convinced me 
that he was going into a perfect steel-trap, and that once in he 
would never get out alive." Finally, Douglass said that, as the 
plan was so completely changed, he should return home, and 
turning to Shields Green, a negro he had brought from Roch- 
ester with him, asked him what he should do. Shields Green 
promptly answered, " I b'lieve I '11 go wid de ole man." Brown 
could not conceal his disappointment at Douglass's defection. 
" I will defend you with my life," he said. " I want you for a 
special purpose. When I strike, the bees will begin to swarm, 
and I shall want you to help me hive them." Douglass's with- 
drawal, as has already been stated, subjected him to consider- 
able criticism, not only for his change of mind, but because 
of the way he withdrew, and of what he afterward said and 
wrote about the raid. 

Other men, colored and white, disappointed Brown. J. H. 
Harris, later the colored Congressman from North Carolina, 
and a member of the Chatham convention, wrote from Cleve- 
land, August 22, that he was disgusted with himself "and the 

whole negro set, 'em." ^^ Alexis Hinckley, a family 

connection of Brown's at North Elba, who had been ready the 
year before, was not on hand now because of domestic trou- 
bles; ^^ Realf had quite disappeared; George B. Gill did not 
"repent" until too late; and R. J. Hinton, also, started too 
late. Henry Thompson and Jason and Salmon Brown were 
averse to joining, and Richard Richardson could not be 
induced to leave Canada, — indeed, the Canadian negro rein- 
forcement that Brown had counted upon wholly failed to 
materialize, except in the case of Osborn P. Anderson, who 
paid his own way. Perhaps it was too much to expect that 
many men who had, at the risk of torture, escaped from life- 
long bondage, should now be willing to place their necks in 
the noose again ; perhaps they were not properly informed as 
to the hour for the revolt. 

For John Brown, Jr., seems to have been the victim of a 
curious mental aberration. Although he had shipped the arms 
to Chambersburg and apologized for the delay in getting them 
off, he suddenly wrote on September 8 to Kagi : ^2 "From what 



414 JOHN BROWN 

/ even, had understood, I had supposed you would not think it 
best to commence opening the coal banks before spring, unless 
circumstances should make it important. However, I suppose 
the reasons are satisfactory to you and if so, those who own 
similar shares, ought not to object." Kagi was constantly urg- 
ing John Brown, Jr., to send forward men, but without much 
avail. The latter's trip to New York, Boston and Canada, 
in August, also seems to have been of little use; it is obvious 
that a stronger forwarding agent — Kagi, for instance — 
would have obtained many more recruits. Certainly, the 
"associations" which John Brown, Jr., formed in Canada for 
recruiting purposes were never heard from; but it would be 
wrong to attribute this to any lack of valor on the part of the 
negroes, — as some have tried to, — in the absence of definite 
information as to John Brown, Jr.'s statements and directions. 
There were a number of white men who claimed later an 
intention to join, and alleged misinformation as to the ex- 
act date, besides Hinton and Gill. Charles W. Lenhart, of 
Kansas fame, is not of this number. He had settled down to 
the study of the law in Cincinnati, and decided to stick to ito 
Gradually, however, the officers and men of the tiny army 
of the Provisional Government did assemble at the Kennedy 
Farm, until there were in all twenty-one men besides the 
commander-in-chief. Watson Brown and the brothers Thomp- 
son, William and Dauphin, arrived on August 6J^ Next ca^e 
Tidd, then Stevens, followed shortly thereafter by Hazlett, 
Taylor and the two Coppocs. Leeman was on hand toward 
the end of August, being preceded, after the Douglass con- 
ference, by Shields Green, who, in company with Owen Brown, 
narrowly escaped being taken by some men who pursued them 
when coming down from Chambersburg. As they lay con- 
cealed in a thicket, in a corn-field near Hagerstown, three 
passers-by caught sight of Owen's coat and, suspicious that 
there might be a runaway slave episode at hand, returned 
twice to catechize Owen and Green. Finally, Owen was com- 
pelled to frighten them off with his revolver. Instantly, he 
and Green set out for the mountains and travelled all night, 
pursued by parties of searchers, often heard and sometimes 
seen, finally reaching Kennedy Farm in a nearly exhausted 
condition. "Oh, what a poor fool I am!" said Green to his 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 415 

companion on the way. " I had got away out df slavery, and 
here I have got back into the eagle's claw again!" ^"^ There- 
after, Owen Brown abandoned his wagon trips to Chambers- 
burg. When Osborn P. Anderson arrived, ^n September 25,^^ 
all the men were on hand except John Copeland, Lewis S. 
Leary and Francis J. Meriam. The others who had joined 
were Cook, from Harper's Ferry, and Dangerfield Newby, a 
negro who had been given his freedom, and was now hoping 
to achieve with the rifle the release of his wife and seven chil- 
dren who remained in bondage. As late as August iG,'^'^ this 
wife and mother begged her husband to buy her and the baby 
that had just "commenced to crawl," " as soon as possible, for 
if you do not get me somebody else will." "Oh, Dear Danger- 
field," wrote this poor slave woman, "come this fall without 
fail, money or no money I want to see you so much: that is 
one bright hope I have before me." But fate decreed that 
Newby should neither save his wife from sale South, nor ever 
see the baby which had just "commenced to crawl," but whose 
body belonged to some one else than its parents. 

It was a strangely mixed company which had now assem- 
bled to undergo close confinement in the cabin or the house, 
prior to a brief day or two of activity and disaster. All day 
long they lay in their garrets for fear of detection. But, ill- 
educated as most of them were, rough, unvarnished, some 
with soiled lives behind them, their hearts throbbed with a 
mighty purpose; the tie that bound them together was the 
outcry of their natures against the monstrous wrong they now 
beheld at close quarters. They were willing to give their lives 
for the sake of others, that others might live and be free; and 
"a greater love than this hath no man." They had willingly 
turned their backs upon their homes and upon the women 
and little children some of these harbored. There is extant a 
most touching series of letters between Watson Brown and his 
young wife, which no one can read unmoved, even fifty years 
after, for the Browns have all had the gift of earnest and mov- 
ing English. There had been born to them, just before Watson 
left for the front, a boy baby, to whom was given the name of 
Frederick, the Kansas victim. "Oh, Bell," wrote Watson to 
the wife who was so soon to lose at one fell stroke her husband, 
her tw^o brothers (the Thompsons), and her brother-in-law: 



4i6 JOHN BROWN 

" I do want to see you and the little fellow very much but must 
wait. There was a slave near where we live whose wife was sold to 
go South the other day and he was found hanging in Thomas Ken- 
nedy's orchard, dead, the next morning. I cannot come home as long 
as such things are done here. ... I sometimes think perhaps we 
shall not meet again." Later, he wrote: "If we should not [meet] 
you have an object to live for, — to be a mother to our little Fred. 
He is not quite a reahty to me yet." And again, on October 14: "We 
are all eager for the work and confident of success. There was an- 
other slave murdered near our place the other day, making in all five 
slaves murdered and one committed suicide near our place since we 
lived here. ... I can but commend you to yourself and our friends 
if I should never see you again." " 

And the brave wife wrote, in reply, of her infant's pranks, 
and then added: " Now Watson keep up good courage and do 
not worry about me and come back as soon as possible. I 
think of you all night in my dreams." ^^ 

When men feel as did Watson Brown, it is easy to go to cer- 
tain death; this the Harper's Ferry plan seemed to many of 
those assembled at the Kennedy Farm. Twice at least there 
was almost a revolt against the armory plan. Tidd, on one 
occasion, felt so outraged and angered at it that he left the 
farm and went, says Mrs. Adams, for three days to Cook's 
house, near the Ferry, "to cool off." Once John Brown ten- 
dered his resignation as commander-in-chief; but it was not 
accepted. He was their leader and they would follow him. On 
the 1 8th of August, Owen Brown gave his father the following 
letter on behalf of those on hand : " 

Harpers Ferry, Aug. 18th, '59. 

Dear Sir, 

We have all agreed to sustain your decisions, until you have 
proved incompetent, & many of us will adhere to your decisions as 
long as you will. 

Your Friend, 

Owen Smith. 

They were ready to do or die. But, meanwhile, the weary 
weeks of waiting — the raid was finally set for October — were 
trying indeed. Of their daily life, Mrs. Annie Brown Adams 
has kindly furnished the following recollections: 

"My father encouraged debating and discussions on all subjects 
among the men, often taking a lively part in the debate himself. 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 417 

Sometimes it would commence between two in the dining room, 
then others would join, those who were upstairs coming down into 
the room to listen or take a part, some sitting on the stairs ready to 
jump and run back out of sight, if the danger signal was given that 
someone was approaching. Although he did not always agree with 
them, he encouraged them to discuss religious questions with him, 
and to express themselves freely on the subject. It is claimed by 
many that they were a wild, ignorant, fanatical or adventurous lot 
of rough men. This is not so, they were sons from good families well 
trained by orthodox religious parents, too young to have settled 
views on many subjects, impulsive, generous, too good themselves to 
believe that God could possibly be the harsh unforgiving being He 
was at that day usually represented to be. Judging them by the 
rules laid down by Christ, I think they were uncommonly good and 
sincere Christians if the term Christian means follower of Christ's 
example, and too great lovers of freedom to endure to be tram- 
meled by church or creed. Self interest or self aggrandizement was 
the farthest thing from their thoughts or intentions. It was a clear 
case of an effort to help those who were oppressed and could not help 
themselves, a practical application of the Golden Rule. I heard 
them ask father one day if the money to pay the expenses was 
furnished by orthodox church members or liberal Christians. He 
said he must confess that it came from the liberal ones. Tidd spoke 
up and said ' I thought so, the orthodox ones do not often do such 
things.' 

"After breakfast Father usually read a chapter in the Bible and 
made a plain, short, sensible prayer, standing while praying. (I have 
seen him kneel, but not often.) This was his custom both at home 
and at Kennedy Farm. Evenings he usually sat on a stool in the 
kitchen because it was warm there, and he once told me he did not 
wish to disturb the 'boys,' or spoil their enjoyment and fun by his 
presence in the living room. He thought they did not feel quite so 
free when he was there. 

"As the table was not large enough for all to sit down at one time 
and the supply of dishes quite limited, Martha and I usually ate 
alone after all the rest were done. She 'dished up' the victuals and 
washed dishes while I carried things into the room and waited on the 
table. There was no door between the kitchen and dining room then, 
both rooms opened on to the porch, making a great deal of walking 
back and forth. After the meals I cleared off the table and washed 
the dishes and swept the floors of the room and porch, constantly on 
the look out for Mrs. Hufifmaster, our nearest neighbor. She was a 
worse plague than the fleas. Of our supplies of food a few things 
were occasionally bought at Harper's Ferry when the men went to 
the post offlce after The Baltimore Sun, which father subscribed 
for. Most of the mail was sent to Kagi at Chambersburg — merely 
for appearance sake. The rest of our food supplies was purchased at 
the towns and all along the road from Chambersburg down, a few 



4i8 JOHN BROWN 

things at a time or place so as not to arouse suspicion. Owen brought 
a barrel of eggs at one time because they were cheaper than meat. 
We had potatoes, onions and bacon. Then Martha was an extra 
good 'light bread' maker. . . . We had a cookstove in the small 
kitchen off the porch upstairs, where we did our cooking. We used 
the basement kitchen and other cemented room on the ground floor 
only for storing purposes. 

"The middle room in the second story was used for dining and 
general living room as the stairway from above came down into that 
room. The men came down and took their meals at the table, except 
on special occasions when some stranger or neighbor was calling 
there. If he or she stayed too long something was carried up the 
ladder at the back end of the house and passed into the window to 
the men. Sometimes Mrs. Huff master with her brood of Httleones 
would be seen coming while the men were at the table eating. They 
would then gather up all the things, table-cloth and all, and go so 
quietly upstairs that no one would believe they existed, finish their 
meal up there and come back down bringing the things, when the 
visitor had gone. We did not have any stove or way of warming any 
of the rooms except the kitchen. The white men most of them, would 
watch their chance, when no one was in sight and skulk into the 
kitchen and stay and visit Martha awhile to relieve the monotony. 
If any one came they would climb the ladder into the loft over the 
kitchen and stay there until Mrs. Huffmaster (usually) was gone. 
The colored men were never allowed to be seen by daylight outside 
of the dining room. After Mrs. Huffmaster saw Shields Green in that 
room, they stayed upstairs closely. 

" I was there to keep the outside world from discovering that John 
Brown and his men were in their neighborhood. I used to help 
Martha with the cooking all she would let me. Father would often 
tell me that I must not let any work interfere with my constant 
watchfulness. That others could help do the housework, but he 
depended on me to watch. When I sat on the porch or just inside the 
door, in the day time, I either read or sewed, to appear occupied if 
any one came near. When I washed the dishes I stood at the end of 
the table, where I could see out of the window and open door if any 
one was approaching the house. I was constantly on the look-out 
while carrying the victuals across the porch, from the kitchen, and 
while I was sweeping and tidying the rooms, and always at my post 
on the porch while the men ate their meals, when not passing in and 
out from the kitchen with food, or waiting on them in other ways at 
the table. My evenings were spent on the porch or sitting on the 
stairs, watching, and listening. 

"The men did nearly all the washing; we spread the clothes on the 
fence and on the ground to dry. Martha and I would bring them in 
as fast as they dried, but Mrs. Huffmaster would have some excuse 
to come to the garden, which she had rented before we went there, 
and then she would notice the clothes and tell us ' Your men folks 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 419 

has a right smart lot of shirts.' No one can ever imagine the pester- 
ing torment that Httle barefooted woman and her four Httle children 
were to us. Martha called them the little hen and chickens. We 
were in constant fear that people would become suspicious enough 
to attempt an investigation and try to arrest the men. The rifles 
were in boxes called 'furniture' and were used to sit on and kept 
standing against the walls in the dining room, one box of pistols 
being in one bedroom near Martha's bed. She used it for a stand, 
table or dressing case, whatever name you wish to call it by. I had 
to tell people who called that: 'My mother was coming soon and 
that she was very particular and had requested us to not unpack her 
furniture until she arrived,' to account for the boxes in the room. 

"At Kennedy Farm, my father wore a short beard, an inch or an 
inch and a half long. He had made this change as a disguise, on his 
return from Kansas, thinking it more likely to disguise him than a 
clean face or than the long beard. 

"Hazlett and Leeman were the hardest ones to keep caged of all 
of ' my invisibles,' as I called them. They would get out and wander 
off' in the woods and even go down to Harper's Ferry, going to 
Cook's home and back in daylight. We were so self-conscious that 
we feared danger when no man pursued or even thought of it. 
Watson, Oliver, Leeman and Kagi were all a little more than six feet 
in height, J. G. Anderson and Dauphin Thompson were next them 
in height but a little less than six feet; William Thompson and 
Stewart Taylor were above or about medium height but not quite 
as tall as the two last. Dangerfield Newby was I think above 
medium size, spare and showed the Scotch blood plainly in his looks 
and ways. His father was a Scotchman, who took his family of 
mulatto children into Ohio and gave them their freedom. Newby 
was quiet, sensible and very unobtrusive. Stevens and Stewart 
Taylor were the only ones who believed in 'spiritualism' and their 
belief was more theoretical than otherwise. The latter was nearer 
to a 'born crank' than any other man in the company. He believed 
in dreams and all sorts of ' isms,' and predicted his own death, which 
really came true. He talked as coolly about it as if he were going 
into another room. He considered it his duty to go to Harper's Ferry 
and go he did, although he knew he was going to his end. He was 
all the time studying and 'improving his mind' as he called it. He 
had learned to write shorthand. O. P. Anderson was accustomed 
to being confined in the house, being a printer by trade, so that he 
was not so restive as some of the others. 

"William Thompson was an easy-going, good-natured person who 
enjoyed telling funny stories, mimicking old people for the amuse- 
ment of any company he was in. But for all his nonsense he pos- 
sessed an abundance of good common sense. When the occasion 
seemed to demand it, he knew how to use it to advantage. He was 
kind hearted and generous to a fault. Dauphin Thompson was the 
youngest one of a family of eighteen children. He was a quiet per- 



420 JOHN BROWN 

son, read a good deal, said little. He was a perfect blond, with yel- 
low, curly hair and blue eyes, innocent as a baby, nearly six feet 
high, good size, well proportioned — a handsome young man. I 
heard Hazlett and Leeman, one day, saying that * Barclay Coppoc 
and Dauphin Thompson were too nearly like good girls to make 
soldiers;' that they ought to have gone to Kansas and 'roughed it' 
awhile to toughen them, before coming down there. To while away 
the time the men read magazines, sang, told stories, argued ques- 
tions, played cards and checkers, studied military tactics, and 
drilled under Stevens. When there was a thunderstorm they would 
jump about and play, making all kinds of noise to rest themselves, 
as they thought no one could hear them then." 

At the end of September orders came for the women guar- 
dians of the conspirators to leave for North Elba. The exact 
date for the attack was not yet fixed, but Oliver Brown, who 
escorted his wife and sister as far as Troy, was ordered to 
hurry back, as the party might be obliged to commence op- 
erations before he returned.^" The girls left Kennedy Farm 
on September 29, and with them went the gay spirits of the 
garrison. "The men then sobered down," said O. P. Ander- 
son afterwards, "and acted like earnest men working hard 
preparing for the coming raid."^^ Among their other occupa- 
tions they then busied themselves with overhauling revolvers 
and rifles, browning the barrels, and afhxing the nearly one 
thousand pike-heads to the shafts of wood. On the 30th of 
September, Annie and Martha parted forever from John 
Brown in the station at Harrisburg,^^ where he had just re- 
turned from a hasty trip to Philadelphia with Kagi on some 
final important business, and whence the girls went on to 
New York. John Brown's trips from the Kennedy Farm were 
quite frequent during the summer, but this is the only re- 
corded journey beyond Chambersburg. There is a fable that 
he made a hasty trip to Iowa and Kansas In the summer of 
1859, but that is wholly without foundation. Between July 
5 and October 16 there is a record of eight trips to Cham- 
bersburg, in addition to his passing through and returning 
on the visit to Philadelphia. 

Francis Jackson Meriam, the grandson of the Abolitionist 
leader, Francis Jackson, of Boston, arrived at Chambersburg 
the day after Brown's final departure for Harper's Ferry. 
Just before Meriam appeared with his six hundred dollars 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 421 

in gold, John Brown had been compelled to borrow forty 
dollars from Barclay Coppoc,^^ — to vsuch straits was the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Provisional Government reduced. 
"The good Father in Heaven who furnishes daily bread sent 
Francis J. Meriam down there with his money to help them 
just at the moment it was needed," says Mrs. Adams. His 
money was Mr. Meriam's only contribution of value to the 
cause. Erratic and unbalanced, frail in his physique, his join- 
ing Brown had been strongly opposed by both Higginson and 
Sanborn, on the ground that he was a "very unfit person" 
for Brown's enterprise. ^^ "The only very positive thing about 
Meriam was his hatred of slavery," was Owen Brown's judg- 
ment of him.^^ In 1858, Meriam had taken a trip to Hayti 
with James Redpath; in that year he had made up his mind 
to give a large portion of his inheritance to the anti-slavery 
cause as soon as he obtained it. He had tried to join John 
Brown in 1858, and was seriously planning devoting his life 
to aiding slaves to escape, for he wrote to a boyhood friend 
asking what the consequences of detection would be, death 
or imprisonment.^^ It was Lewis Hayden, a Boston negro, 
who, on meeting Meriam on the street, told him of Brown's 
being at Chambersburg and in dire financial distress. Meriam 
set off almost at once, after seeing Higginson in Worces- 
ter, and as soon as he arrived in Chambersburg, had his will 
drawn by Alexander K. McClure (later the famous Phila- 
delphia editor), and duly attested. ^^ He next went to Philadel- 
phia and Baltimore, to buy military supplies, and then to the 
Wager House at Harper's Ferry, on the day before the raid, 
being brought up to the farm by one of Brown's sons. Here, 
on Sunday morning, he, the brothers Coppoc, Leary, Cope- 
land and Green were told of the plan of attack, heard the 
Provisional Constitution read by Stevens, and took the oath 
of fidelity and secrecy administered by John Brown him- 
self.^^ The latter promptly took Meriam's measure and as- 
signed to him the duty of guarding the arms left at Kennedy 
Farm, to which fact he owed his escape to Canada. He was 
then twenty-two years of age, and had lost the sight of one 
eye. 

On October 8, Brown sent his last letter to his family prior 
to the raid : *^ 



422 JOHN BROWN 

Chambersburg, Pa. 8th Oct, 1859. 
Dear Wife; & Children All 

Oliver returned safe on Wednesday of this week. I want Bell, & 
Martha both to feel that they have a home with you untill we return. 
We shall do all in our power to provide for the wants of the whole as 
one family ; till that time. If Martha; & Anne, had any money left 
after getting home: I wish it to be used to make all as comfortable 
as may be; for the present. All are in usualy good health. I expect 
John will send you some assistance soon. Write him all you want to 
say to us. God bless you all 

Your Affectionate Husband & Father 

Two days later, October 10, Kagi sent from Chambersburg 
his last report to John Brown, Jr., in Ohio, who was still writ- 
ing of the recruits he was going to forward in the immediate 
future, but never got ofif. This letter of Kagi's is particularly 
important, since it is a clear reflection of Brown's own ideas 
as to the prospects for success in the venture before them : '" 

Your father was here yesterday but had not time to write before 
returning. I shall leave here this afternoon "for good." This is the 
last of our stay here, for we have not $5 left, and the men must be 
given work or they will find it themselves. We shall not be able to 
receive any thing from you after to-day. It will not do for any one 
to try to find us now. You must by all means keep back the men 
you talked of sending and furnish them work to live upon until you 
receive further instructions. Any one arriving here after to-day and 
trying to join us, would be trying a very hazardous and foolish 
experiment. They must keep off the border until we open the way 
clear up to the line (M. & D's) from the South. Until then, it will 
be just as dangerous here as on the other side, in fact more so: for, 
there there will be protection also, but not here. It will not do to 
write to Harper's Ferry. It will never get there — would do no good 

if it did. You can communicate with us thus * (This 

must be a profound secret) Be sure no one gets into trouble in trying 
to get to us. We will try to communicate with you as soon as pos- 
sible after we strike, but it may not be possible for us to do so soon. 
If we succeed in getting news from the outside our own district it 
will be quite satisfactory, but we have not the most distant hope 
that it will be possible for us to receive recruits for weeks, or quite 
likely months to come. We must first make a complete and undis- 
putably open road to the free states. That will require both labor 
and time. 

This is just the right time. The year's crops have been good, and 
they are now perfectly housed, and in the best condition for use. 
The moon is just right. Slaves are discontented at this season more 
* This space not filled out. 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 423 

than at any other, the reasons for which reflection will show you. 
We can't live longer without money, — we could n't get along 
much longer without being exposed. A great religious revival is 
going on, and has its advantages. Under its influence, people who 
are commonly barely unfavorable to Slavery under religious excite- 
ment in meetings speak boldly against it. In addition to this and 
as a stimulant to the religious feeling, a fine slave man near our head- 
quarters, hung himself a few days ago because his master sold his 
wife away from him. This also arouses the slaves. There are more 
reasons which I could give, but I have not time. 

I will not close without saying that John E. Cook's wife & chil- 
dren are here, (at Mrs. R's) and will board here probably until the 
end. She came on Friday, has lived at the "Ferry." Her board is 
paid until the ist of November, but after that we shall expect to 
see you or some one under your direction, have it paid monthly in 
advance, from $10 to $15 besides the necessary etceteras, clothing 
&c. — This must be our last for a time. 

Yours 

J. H. 

John Brown's last letter to his son was dated October i, 
and read as follows :^^ 

Dear Friend: — 

I wrote you yesterday at Cleveland in which I forgot to say that 
any person or thing that reaches this place on Thursday the 6th 
Octo. inst. will in all probability find the Road open, but beyond that 
day we cannot be at all certain for some time at least. If you were 
here, I could fully explain all but cannot do so now. From Harris- 
burg by Rail Road remember. 

"Associations" to hinder, delay and prevent our Adversaries, might 
perhaps effect much. Our active enemies, should be spotted to a 
man, and some shrewd person should be on the border to look after 
that matter somewhat extensively. Can you dig up a good and true 
man, to communicate with us on the border, or close to it where we 
may name places from time to time? 

Yours ever 

I. S. 

Yet, in the face of these two letters, John Brown, Jr., 
frequently stated that the news of the raid took him com- 
pletely by surprise, — which reveals a condition of mind 
hardly helpful to the grave venture upon which his father 
was embarked. 

Francis Jackson Meriam's arrival seems to have removed 
the last obstacle to Brown's delivering the attack. Up to that 
time, waiting for men and money had steadily postponed the 



424 JOHN BROWN 

issue. Perhaps, too, there was in the delay something of that 
curious indecision that was so fatal to the original project 
when the raid was undertaken, and which also occasioned the 
delay in his entering Kansas from Tabor in 1857. Salmon 
Brown asserts that the reason for his not joining the expe- 
dition was his belief that his father would hesitate and delay 
until he was trapped, precisely as happened, waiting for cir- 
cumstances to be exactly as he wished them to be. " I said," 
he declares, ^2 " to the boys before they left, 'you know father. 
You know he will dally till he is trapped ! ' Father had a pecul- 
iarity of insisting on order. I felt that at Harper's Ferry this 
very thing would be likely to trap him. He would insist on 
getting everything arranged just to suit him before he would 
consent to make a move." There has been a vast amount of 
discussion as to whether the raid was hastened or delayed. 
John Brown, Jr.'s position has given color to the theory that 
it was hastened ; so, too, has the fact that Gill and Hinton 
were left behind. Again, there are frequent stories that Brown 
learned of a betrayal of his plans, and so hurried to strike the 
blow; that a posse was being formed near by to investigate 
the goings on at Kennedy Farm, which had to be anticipated ; 
that news that twelve thousand arms were to be taken away 
from the Harper's Ferry armory had reached Brown's ears; 
and finally that criticism by some of the Boston friends, 
who were impatient at the expense and delay, had precip- 
itated the attack. The truth is that there was danger of dis- 
covery from the Huffmasters and other neighbors, and that 
the men could no longer stand the inaction and close confine- 
ment; some were already getting out of hand. When Meri- 
am's money came, it was the last impetus needed to an attack 
which had been delayed much longer than any one dreamed 
of when Brown set out from Boston for the last time. So far 
as climatic conditions were concerned, it had been postponed 
far too long. 

"One day, while we were alone in the yard," writes Mrs. 
Adams, "Owen remarked as he looked up at the house: 'If 
we succeed, some day there will be a United States flag over 
this house. If we do not, it will be considered a den of land 
pirates and thieves.'" It was with this conviction that 
the majority of the men went to their doom. All save Taylor 



THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 425 

hoped by some stroke of fortune to come out alive; but only 
a few believed in the plan of campaign, or looked upon 
the arsenal venture as anything else but a death-trap. Yet 
it was in an exalted frame of mind that they spent their last 
Sabbath and came together for their last meal. For them 
the hour had struck ; their sacrifice was ready for the altar of 
liberty. 



CHAPTER XII 
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 

"Men, get on your arms; we will proceed to the Ferry." 
With these words, John Brown, Commander-in-Chief of the 
Provisional Army, set in motion his troop of liberators on 
that peaceful Sabbath, the i6th of October, 1859. It took 
but a minute to bring the horse and wagon to the door, to 
place in it some pikes, fagots, a sledge-hammer and a crow- 
bar. His men themselves had been in readiness for hours; 
they had but to buckle on their arms and throw over their 
shoulders, like army blankets, the long gray shawls which 
served some for a few brief hours in lieu of overcoats, and 
then became their winding-sheets. In a moment more, the 
commander-in-chief donned his old battle-worn Kansas cap, 
mounted the wagon, and began the solemn march through 
the chill fall night to the bridge into Harper's Ferry, nearly 
six miles away. Tremendous as the relief of action was, there 
was no thought of any cheering or demonstration. As the 
eighteen men with John Brown swung down the little lane to 
the road from the farmhouse that had been their prison for so 
many weary weeks, they bade farewell to Captain Owen Brown 
and Privates Barclay Coppoc and F. J. Meriam, who re- 
mained as rear-guard in charge of the arms and supplies. The 
brothers Coppoc read the future correctly, for they embraced 
and parted as do men who know they are to meet no more 
on earth. The damp, lonely night, too, added to the solemnity 
of it all, as they pressed forward through its gloom. As if to 
intensify the sombreness, they met not a living soul on the 
road to question their purpose, or start with fright at the sight 
of eighteen soldierly men coming two by two through the 
darkness as though risen from the grave. There was not a 
sound but the tramping of the men and the creaking of the 
wagon, before which, in accordance with a general order, drawn 
up and carefully read to all, walked Captains Cook and Tidd, 
their Sharp's rifles hung from their shoulders, their commis- 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 427 

sions, duly signed and officially sealed, in their pockets. They 
were detailed to destroy the telegraph wires on the Mary- 
land side and then on the Virginian, while Captains John H. 
Kagi and A. D. Stevens, bravest of the brave, were to take 
the bridge watchman and so strike the first blow for liberty.* 
But as they and their comrades marched rapidly over the 
rough road, Death himself moved by their side. 

As for their general, he not only was the sole member of 
the attacking force to believe in the assault on the property 
of the United States at Harper's Ferry, but he was, as they 
neared the all-unsuspecting town, without any clear and defi- 
nite plan of campaign. The general order detailed the men 
who were to garrison various parts of the town and hold the 
bridges, but beyond that, little had been mapped out. It was 
all to depend upon the orders of the commander-in-chief, who 
seemed bent on violating every military principle. , Thus, he 
had appointed no definite place for the men to retreat to, and 
fixed no hour for the withdrawal from the town. He, more- 
over, proceeded at once to defy the canons by placing a river 
between himself and his base of supplies, — the Kennedy 
Farm, — and then left no adequate force on the river-bank 
to insure his being able to fall back to that base. Hardly 
had he entered the town when, by dispersing his men here 
and there, he made his defeat as easy as possible. ^Moreover, 
he had in mind no well-defined purpose in attacking Harper's 
Ferry, save to begin his revolution in a spectacular way, cap- 
ture a few slaveholders and release some slaves. So far as 
he had thought anything out, he expected to alarm the town 
and then, with the slaves that had rallied to him, to march 
back to the school-house near the Kennedy Farm, arm his 
recruits and take to the hills. Another general, with the same 
purpose in view, would have established his mountain camp 
first, swooped down upon the town in order to spread terror 
throughout the State, and in an hour or two, at most, have 
started back to his hill-top fastness. 

Aside from the opportunity to assail directly the Federal 
Government, Harper's Ferry would, moreover, seem to have 
been the last place for an attack upon the institution against 
which John Brown was in arms. It was by no means a typical 
Southern town, for a large majority of its three thousand resi- 



428 JOHN BROWN 

dents were mechanics brought there from Springfield, Mas- 
sachusetts, and elsewhere, — "foreigners" in the eyes of the 
real Southerners. ^ The very slave-owners of the vicinity lived, 
not at the Ferry, but on their neighboring farms, driving in 
occasionally to the bright little town, prosperous and happy 
because the United States paid regularly and well the bulk of 
the citizenship, and set every householder a good example by 
the neatness and beauty of its grounds, adorned as they were 
by smiling flowers and by handsome buildings. As for the 
gentlemen farmers of the Virginia vicinity, they were content 
to raise only what produce they actually needed ; they lived 
too far north to cultivate great crops of cotton. Hence their 
bondmen were largely well-kept house-servants, of the kind 
upon whom the ills of slavery rested most lightly, and among 
whom the desire for freedom was least keen. 

The arsenal to which John Brown's little ''army" took its 
way had been established as far back as 1794, in the Presi- 
dency of George Washington, on the peninsula formed by 
the juncture of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. The 
natural beauty of its surroundings is greatly enhanced by the 
Maryland Heights, thirteen hundred feet high, on the oppo- 
site bank of the Potomac, and the Loudon Heights, but little 
lower, on the other side of the Shenandoah, the two forming, 
as it were, a gateway to the Valley of Virginia of veritable 
grandeur. Thomas Jefferson said of it:^ "The passage of the 
Potomac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most 
stupendous scenes in nature; . . . worth a voyage across the 
Atlantic" to witness; the heights he called "monuments of 
war between rivers and mountains which must have shaken 
the earth itself to its centre." Harper's Ferry has but a 
narrow, level space along each river; then there rises a hill 
involving a steep ascent before one reaches the plateau of 
Bolivar Heights. The town climbs the hill after the manner 
of European mountain villages, and is far below the Heights. 
"You may climb to the graveyard," wrote a traveller in 1856, 
"by the lightning rod of the Episcopal church, or you may 
slide down the rain-spout of the hotel to the ladies' car of the 
Wheeling train — only you must take care not to fling your- 
self, an unpremeditated soap-and-candle Curtius, down the 
paymaster's kitchen chimney, or put your foot in the soup 




B 



D 



GENERAL VIEW OF HARPER'S ] 



B. Slienandoah River. C. Site of Old Bridge by which Brown and his men entered Har 

with the road over whicii the 



A. Loudon Heights. 

(Kennedy Farm, the rendezvous of Brow^n's party prior to the raid, lies between the hills on the extreme rig 




^, FROM MARYLAND HEIGHTS 

erry. D. New Railroad Bridge. E. Bolivar Heights. F. Potomac River. G. Chesapeake and Oliio Canal 
came from Kennedy Farm, 
le picture, in Maryland. Charlestown is on the high ground beyond llie curve of the Shenandoah River.) 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 429 

tureen of the master armorer who is taking dinner in the 
basement, which is a sort of antipodean attic." * 

While nature has thus distinguished the town, its desira- 
bility as a military position is not enhanced by its surround- 
ings, for, as was shown later, in the Civil War, it lies at the 
mercy of any force which scales the Loudon or Maryland 
Heights; from them it is easy for sharpshooters to pick off 
any one in the Ferry. In the rear, to defend it successfully, 
the enemy must be prevented from reaching Bolivar Heights. 
In 1859, the chief approaches to Harper's Ferry were by way 
of a bridge over the Shenandoah, and by a covered bridge 
from Maryland across the Potomac which was used both by 
the railroad and by vehicular trafhc. The danger to any raid- 
ing force would come from losing possession of these bridges, 
in which case the sole means of escape would be by swimming 
the rivers or climbing up through the town toward Bolivar 
Heights, in the direction of Charlestown,* eight miles away 
by road, then, as now, the county seat of Jefferson County, 
and an important place. 

"^^It was half-past ten when Kagi and Stevens, as advance 
guard, entered the Maryland bridge and made William Wil- 
liams, the watchman, their prisoner. He thought it a good 
joke, for he recognized Brown and Cook in the group that 
followed ; but he was soon made to realize that here was grim 
earnest, and, like the others captured early in the raid, was 
utterly dumfounded.^ On crossing the bridge, the raiders 
next came to the combined railroad station and hotel of Har- 
per's Ferry, known as the Wager House. On the left side, 
on the bank of the Shenandoah, was a low saloon known as 
the Gait House, and straight ahead were the buildings of 
the arsenal in which the completed guns were stored. To the 
right, running along the Potomac for six hundred yards or 
more, extended the shops of the armory, protected on the 
river-side by the railroad track, but always in danger from 
freshets at high water. Of the armory proper, the first build- 
ing was the watch-room and fire-engine house, in which Brown 
and his men were finally penned up ; it was but sixty yards 
or so from the ends of both bridges. Indeed, the whole tra- 
gedy which ensued was within an extraordinarily small space. 

* The modern spelling is Charles Town. 



430 JOHN BROWN 

Beyond the fire-engine house were the forging shop, the ma- 
chine shop, the stocking shop, the "component department" 
and the rolHng-mills of the arsenal. About half a mile dis- 
tant, on the Shenandoah, were what is known as the rifle 
works, separate shops in which sixty expert^gunsmiths turned 
out weapons for the regular army.^ Contrary to the custom 
of the present day, the arsenals of the government in 1859 
were cared for' by civilians,- not by regularly enlisted sol- 
diers of the Ordnance Corps; there were, in JPact, but a few 
watchmen on duty at night at Harper's Ferry. John Brown, 
therefore, had nothing to fear from any armed guard on the 
spot. Hence, he confidently hoped to retire to the mountain's 
before catching sight of a soldier of the regular army or of 
the militia, — by no means an unjustifiable expectation. For 
Harper's Ferry and the surrounding country knew nothing of 
war or its alarums. It had never seen belligerent men with 
guns in their hands since Revolutionary days, and in October, 
1859, it no more feared an armed invasion than does the 
quietest and sleepiest New England village to-day. Its citi- 
zens would as soon have expected a cataclysm of nature as 
bloodshed in their streets. 

After crossing the bridge, the second prisoner was taken. 
He was another watchman, Daniel Whelan, who held the 
armory gate. Not even when the raiders clapped their guns 
to his breast and told him to give up the key, would he be 
unfaithful to his trust. Here the crow-bar in the wagon found 
its first usefulness; it was but a minute before entrance was 
forced. "One fellow," said Whelan, "took me; they all gath- 
ered about me and looked in my face; I was nearly scared to 
death for so many guns about; I did not know the minute 
or the hour I should drop ; they told me to be very quiet and 
still and make no noise or else they would put me to eternity." 
John Brown with two men held the big gate. To Whelan and 
Williams the leader said: " I came here from Kansas, and this 
is a slave State ; I want to free all the negroes in this State ; I 
have possession now of the United States armory, and if the 
citizens interfere with me I must only burn the town and have 
blood." ^ Then he crossed the street and, unopposed, took 
possession of the arsenal buildings, Albert Hazlett and Edwin 
Coppoc being made the arsenal's temporary garrison. Grad- 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 431 

ually, other prisoners came in; there were two or three young 
fellows captured on the street, and others on the Shenandoah 
■-^. bridge. Thence Brown, A. D. Stevens, and a group of the 
raiders proceeded to the rifle works, captured a watchman 
there and put John H. Kagi and John A. Copeland in posses- 
sion, Lewis Sheridan Leary reinforcing them later. ^ 

Meanwhile, the commander-in-chief had despatched a raid- 
ing expedition up to and beyond Bolivar Heights. John 
Brown knew well the value of the dramatic in all his under- 
takings, and understood what would appeal to the popular 
imagination. There lived, five miles from Harper's Ferry, a 
Colonel Lewis W. Washington, a great-grandnephew of the 
first President, and like him a gentleman-farmer and slave- 
owner. In Colonel Washington's possession was a pistol pre- 
sented to General Washington by Lafayette, as well as a sword, 
now in possession of the State of New York, which, according 
to unverified legend, was the gift of Frederick the Great to 
George Washington. John E. Cook had seen these weapons in 
Colonel Washington's home, and John Brown, beginner of a 
new American revolution, wished to strike his first blow for the 
freedom of a race with them in his hands. It was at midnight 
that Colonel Washington was awakened by four armed men, 
who stood at his chamber door with a burning flambeau 
and notified him that he was their prisoner.^ Had the Heav- 
ens fallen, he could not have been more astonished than by 
the appearance of Osborn P. Anderson, who with Stevens, 
Tidd, Cook, Leary and Shields Green, formed this raiding 
party. One act of his captors in particular must have rankled 
with him. By John Brown's specific instructions, Stevens 
compelled Colonel Washington to hand over the illustri- 
ous Frederick's sword to the negro Anderson, — another bit 
of that symbolism by which Brown set such store. ^'^ Then 
Colonel Washington was led forth to his own carriage; behind 
it stood his four-horse farm-wagon, into which climbed the 
raiders and Washington's slaves, who were told to come and 
fight for their liberty, and the caravan set off for Harper's 
Ferry. On its way there was a stop at a neighbor's, Mr. 
John H. Allstadt's, where much the same scene was enacted. 
The crash of a fence-rail against the front door woke the 
house to cries of murder from the women of the family. 



432 JOHN BROWN 

" Presently," recalls Mr. John Thomas Allstadt, then a boy 
of eighteen, 

"they led my father and me outside. There we saw Colonel Wash- 
ington, sitting in his own team. They put us, my father and me, 
on the seat of Colonel Washington's four-horse wagon. In the body, 
behind us, our six negroes and Colonel Washington's quota stood 
close packed. As we drove inside the Armory yard, there stood an old 
man. 'This,' said Stevens, by way of introduction, 'is John Brown.' 
'Osawatomie Brown of Kansas,' added Brown. Then he handed out 
pikes to our negroes, telling them to guard us carefully, to prevent 
our escape. 'Keep these white men inside,' said he. There were no 
other local negroes within the enclosure, save Colonel Washington's 
and ours. We arrived at the Armory just about daybreak. We were 
not taken inside the building until several men had fallen. In the 
interval we were permitted to walk up and down before the engine 
house, east and west, but not on the east side, on which were the 
gates."" 

Said John Brown to Lewis Washington, as he greeted him 
at the engine-house at the armory: 

" I think, after a while, possibly, I shall be enabled to release you, 
but only on the condition of getting your friends to send in a negro 
man as a ransom. I shall be very attentive to you, sir, for I may get 
the worst of it in my first encounter, and if so, your life is worth 
as much as mine. I shall be very particular to pay attention to 
you. My particular reason for taking you first was that, as the aid 
to the Governor of Virginia, I knew you would endeavor to perform 
your duty, and perhaps you would have been a troublesome cus- 
tomer to me; and, apart from that, I wanted you particularly for 
the moral effect it would give our cause having one of your name, 
as a prisoner." '^ 

Meanwhile, as the night had worn on, the town had become 
aroused. Patrick Higgins, the night watchman of the Mary- 
land bridge, who came to relieve William Williams, was shot 
at for striking Oliver Brown and refusing to surrender. The 
bullet ploughed a furrow in his scalp, but did not prevent his 
seeking safety in the Wager House and helping to give the 
alarm. At 1.25 In the morning, the Baltimore and Ohio train 
bound from the West to Baltimore arrived In Harper's Ferry 
and attempted to cross the bridge. As it was In the act of 
starting on, Patrick Higgins came up to Conductor Phelps 
and told his story of being attacked by men carrying rifles. 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 433 

The engineer and baggage-master went forward to investigate, 
but returned immediately on being fired at and seeing the 
muzzles of four rifles resting on a railing; at once the train 
backed away.^^ It was at this moment that Shephard Hay- 
ward, a free negro who acted as baggage-master of the station, 
went around the corner of the hotel and on toward the bridge, 
to look for the missing watchman. He, too, received a com- 
mand to halt, but it probably meant as little to him as it had 
to Patrick Higglns,* and as he turned to retrace his steps to 
the station, a bullet passed through his body a little below his 
heart. He lay in agony in the railroad station until his death, 
nearly twelve hours later, attended at times by a doctor and 
Patrick Higgins, who brought him water. 

This was, indeed, an ill omen for the army of liberation. 
The first man to fall at their hands was neither a slave-owner, 
nor a defender of slavery, nor one who suffered by it, but a 
highly respected, well-to-do colored man, in full possession 
of his liberty and favored with the respect of the white com- 
munity. He had not even offered to resist. ^^ And so at the 
very first moment was violated a final charge which John 
Brown gave to his men before he ordered them to take the 
road. "And now, gentlemen," he said, "let me impress this 
one thing on your minds; you all know how dear life is to 
you, and how dear your lives are to your friends; and in re- 
membering that, consider that the lives of others are as dear 
to them as yours are to you : do not, therefore, take the life 
of anyone if you can possibly avoid it; but if it is necessary 
to take life in order to save your own, then make sure work 
of it." 15 

As for the train, it remained there until daylight, although 
Conductor Phelps received word at three o'clock from Brown 
through a prisoner that he might proceed; he would not 
trust his train across the bridge until daylight. ^^ Then John 
Brown let him go — to spread abroad the tidings of what had 
happened. At 7.05 A. m., Phelps arrived at Monocacy and 
telegraphed to W. P. Smith, the master of transportation 
at Baltimore, the story of the night: that he and his baggage- 

* "Now," says Patrick Higgins, "I did n't know what 'Halt' mint then any 
more than a hog knows about a holiday." He still lives at Sandy Hook. 



434 JOHN BROWN 

master had been fired at, that Hayward had been shot, and 
that the insurrectionists were one hundred and fifty strong. 

"They say," his despatch went on, "they have come to free the 
slaves and intend to do it at aU hazards. The leader of those men 
requested me to say to you that this is the last train that shall pass 
the bridge either East or West. If it is attempted it will be at the 
peril of the lives of those having them in charge. ... It has been 
suggested you had better notify the Secretary of War at once. The 
telegraph wires are cut East and West of Harper's Ferry and this 
is the first station that I could send a dispatch from." ^^ 

But so extraordinary a message did not find credence in 
those piping times of peace. The master of transportation 
telegraphed dubiously at nine o'clock: "Your dispatch is 
evidently exaggerated and written under excitement. Why 
should our trains be stopped by Abolitionists, and how do 
you know they are such and that they numbered one hun- 
dred or more? What is their object? Let me know at once 
before we proceed to extremities." "My dispatch was not 
exaggerated," replied Conductor Phelps from Ellicott's Mills 
at eleven o'clock, "neither was it written under excitement 
as you suppose. I have not made it half as bad as it is. . . . 
I will call at your office immediately on my arrival and tell 
you all." Before this reply was received, the president of 
the railroad, John W. Garrett, had seen the conductor's des- 
patch, and lost no time in acting upon it. At half-past ten 
he had telegraphed to the President of the United States, 
to Governor Wise, of Virginia, and to Major-General George 
H. Stewart, commanding the First Light Division, Maryland 
Volunteers, in Baltimore, that an insurrection was in pro- 
gress in Harper's Ferry, in which free negroes and whites 
were engaged. Thus the first alarm was given hours before 
it should have been. Moreover, from Monocacy w^ord had 
reached Frederick, a short distance away, and by ten o'clock 
the military company of that place was under arms. 

Unfortunately for John Brown's belief that he had hours 
of immunity before he need think of beginning his retreat. 
Harper's Ferry had its Paul Revere. He was John D. Starry, 
a physician of the town, who lived but a stone's throw from 
the Wager House. The shot which mortally wounded Hay- 
ward aroused him, as did the injured man's cry of distress.^* 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 435 

He went at once to Hayward's side, only to find that he 
was beyond help. He heard the firing on the street which 
made the conductor of the train beat a retreat, but Dr. Starry 
himself was not to be frightened. He stood at the corner 
of the station and watched three of the raiders approaching ; 
then he notified the alarmed passengers who had crowded into 
the waiting-room that he would follow the strangers into the 
armory and find out what it was all about. He did so, was 
challenged, and returned to the station without the infor- 
mation he desired. Later, he exchanged words with the raid- 
ers who held the bridge, quite unmolested, although other 
citizens were arrested on sight. This was characteristic of 
the haphazard character of the raid and the lack of specific 
instructions. Dr. Starry devoted the rest of the night to 
watching; saw Colonel Washington's four-horse wagon arrive, 
and then, at five minutes after five o'clock, saw it drive over 
the Maryland bridge in charge of John E. Cook and disap- 
pear on the other bank; three men with pikes in their hands 
were in the wagon and two with rifles marched alongside. 
At daylight he could stand it no longer; he saddled his horse, 
rode first to the residence of A. M. Kitzmiller, who was in 
charge of the arsenal in the absence of the superintendent, 
Mr. Barbour, and aroused him and a number of other officials 
and workmen with the story of the night. He then put spurs 
to his horse and climbed the hill to Bolivar Heights, where he 
again awoke some sleepers. Without dismounting, he rode 
back into the town, going straight to the rifle works, where 
he found three armed men. With admirable courage he rode 
to within twenty-five or thirty paces of them. As they did 
not molest him, he decided to take charge of matters and 
drive the invaders out. 

He lost not a minute's time, for, in his own words: 

"I went back to the hillside then, and tried to get the citizens 
together, to see what we could do to get rid of these fellows. They 
seemed to be very troublesome. When I got on the hill I learned that 
they had shot Boerley. That was probably about 7 o'clock. Boerley 
was an Irishman living there, a citizen of the town. He died very 
soon afterwards. ... I had ordered the Lutheran church bell to be 
rung to get the citizens together to see what sort of arms they had; 
I found one or two squirrel rifles and a few shot guns; I had sent 
a messenger to Charlestown in the meantime for Captain Rowan, 



436 JOHN BROWN 

commander of a volunteer company therfe: I also sent messengers 
to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to stop the trains coming east 
and not let them approach the Ferry, and also a messenger to Shep- 
herdstown. When I could find no guns fit for use, and learned from 
the operatives and foreman at the armory that all the guns that 
they knew of were in the arsenal and in possession of these men, 
I thought I had better go to Charlestown myself, perhaps; I did 
so and hurried Captain Rowan off. When I returned to the Ferry, 
I found that the citizens had gotten some guns out of one of the 
workshops — guns which had been placed there to keep them out of 
the high water — and were pretty well armed. I assisted, from that 
time until some time in the night, in various ways, organizing the 
citizens and getting them to the best place of attack, and sometimes 
acting professionally." 

Charlestown, as already stated, was eight miles away. 
When Dr. Starry reached there on his foam-flecked horse, 
the alarm bells were being rung, and from bed or breakfast 
men hurried to the court-house, the centre of the town, to 
learn that Abolitionists and slave-stealers were murdering 
innocent men in the streets of Harper's Ferry. W^hat the 
South had been dreading ever since the Nat Turner insur- 
rection of 1 83 1 had come to pass: there was another servile 
uprising in the land. For years patrols had ridden the roads 
and men had watched of night lest the negroes turn upon 
their masters. It was an ever-present fear; that the Abo- 
litionists wished the slaves to rise and kill their masters in 
their beds was a belief widely held in the South and often 
publicly expressed, and no happening that could be imagined 
contained a greater possibility of horror and bloodshed. But 
the men of Charlestown faltered not at all, now that the long- 
dreaded hour had come. The militia, called the JefTerson 
Guards, fell into line ununiformed; and then boys and men, 
"accoutred as they were " with muskets or rifles or squirrel- 
guns, their scant ammunition in their pockets, formed still 
another company, also with no sign of a uniform. On the 
moment, the new company chose officers, and at ten o'clock 
both companies were ofT by train for their first active ser- 
vice. ^^ But not their last, for in this column were brave men 
who fought from 1861 to 1865 with the indomitable courage 
of the Confederacy, even when their homes were in ruins or 
in the enemy's hands, their clothes in tatters, their feet bare. 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 437 

Uniforms were needless in 1859 or 1865, when the martial 
spirit was so high and the sense of duty so keen. It was some- 
thing that John Brown had not counted on, nor would any 
one else in his place have thought it possible; not now, fifty 
years later, would it be possible to get men as quickly on the 
spot again. An example of the natural military talent of the 
South, it should by itself have silenced, a year and a half 
later, those who thought to march from Washington to Rich- 
mond as if on an afternoon's promenade. And the Jefferson 
Guards, besides their speed of assembly, were well led, for 
with excellent military judgment they left the citizens' com- 
pany on Bolivar Heights, and, crossing the Potomac by boat, 
a mile or more above the arsenal, and then the Chesapeake 
and Ohio Canal, re-formed upon its bank, on Maryland soil, 
and marched down to the bridge over the same road over 
which the raiders had come from Kennedy Farm the pre- 
ceding night. 20 

While the Charlestown military was hurrying to the scene 
with such astonishing promptitude, there had been, after 
the departure of the train and the killing of the unfortunate 
Mr. Boerly, for a time a cessation of hostilities in Harper's 
Ferry. During this interval, John Brown ordered and had 
served from the Wager House, breakfast for forty-five per- 
sons, which, however, neither he nor Mr. Allstadt nor Colo- 
nel Washington would touch, — all three fearing that the 
employees of the Wager House had poisoned the food. 21 
Throughout this long day, John Brown and most of his men 
fought without a morsel to eat. The prisoners had rapidly 
increased in number, for, as the master mechanics and work- 
men approached the gates, they were quickly bagged, until 
such time as the town was thoroughly alarmed. Estimates 
of the number of prisoners finally confined in the watch- 
house have gone as high as a hundred and as low as thirty; 
the latter number is more nearly correct. Between nine and 
ten o'clock, Leeman, who had gone with John E. Cook and 
Colonel Washington's wagon toward the Kennedy Farm, 
had arrived with a prisoner, Terence Byrne, a farmer and 
slave-owner who lived in Maryland, about three miles from 
Harper's Ferry. With them returned William Thompson, 
whom Brown had sent to notify Owen Brown, at the school- 



438 JOHN BROWN 

house near the Kennedy Farm, that all was going well, — a 
message soon to be singularly misleading." 

Throughout the early morning, John Brown received urgent 
messages from his able lieutenant, Kagi, at the rifle works, 
begging him to leave the town at once. For him the inde- 
cision of Brown was shortly to be fatal. Just why it was that 
the commander-in-chief let slip the golden hours when escape 
was possible will never be wholly explained. He himself 
averred that his thought for his prisoners had much to do 
with it. There is no doubt, too, that he still expected the 
negroes to rise in numbers and swell his force to irresistible 
proportions. The lack of a carefully thought out programme 
told as well. Though he kept perfectly cool and clear-headed, 
he proved incapable of attempting anything aggressive, and 
the citizens were speedily aware that the raiders were on the 
defensive. Between nine and ten o'clock, Brown had actually 
discussed with his prisoners negotiations with the citizens 
looking to a cessation of firing, and to leaving him in posses- 
sion of the armory. A brave prisoner named Joseph A. Brua 
went backward and forward begging the citizens not to shoot, 
as they endangered the lives of Colonel Washington and the 
other prisoners. 2^ But soon after ten o'clock general firing 
began. 

It was about noon that the Jefferson Guards reached the 
Maryland end of the Potomac bridge. They quickly drove 
from it Oliver Brown and the rest of the guard, and, crossing, 
entered the Wager House; but not until they had had a sharp 
exchange of volleys with such of the raiders as John Brown 
could hastily assemble. In this rush of the Jefferson Guards, 
one of its members was severely wounded in the left arm 
and crippled for life.^^ But the purpose of the movement 
was achieved : one door of the Harper's Ferry trap was closed, 
and as it was sprung, communication with the Kennedy 
Farm was cut off. The strategy of Colonel John T. Gibson, 
of Charlestown, who, as Colonel of the Fifty-fifth Virginia 
Infantry, commanded both companies, or of Captain Rowan, 
the Mexican War veteran, who led the Jefferson Guards, 
had accomplished far more than its originator could at the 
moment have imagined. 

But with their arrival at the Wager House, the initiative 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 439 

of the Charlestown militia ceased. The newly formed com- 
pany of their townsmen had, meanwhile, come down from 
Bolivar Heights under Captain Botts and occupied the Gait 
House and the Shenandoah bridge, while a detachment under 
Captain John Avis and Richard B. Washington took pos- 
session of some houses between the hill and the arsenal, from 
which they could fire readily into the yard." They had hardly 
taken their places, when Mr. Washington shot and instantly 
killed Dangerfield Newby, who, with William Thompson and 
Oliver Brown, had been driven off the bridge by the Jefferson 
Guards and was fleeing back to the armory. ^^ Newby was 
thus the first to die of John Brown's men, and with him 
perished the hope of liberty of his poor slave wife, who 
so ardently longed for her "dear Dangerfield" to release her 
and her brood of seven slave children. John Brown was now 
entirely cut off from his three men in the rifle works, and 
from Hazlett and Anderson, the guard in the arsenal. He had 
left at this hour but a single way of retreat, — through the 
armory buildings under the hill, — with no means of crossing 
the Potomac to the Maryland shore. 

After the loss of the Potomac bridge and the killing of 
Newby, whose body was subjected to shocking indignities, — 
his ears were sliced off for souvenirs," — at Brown's request, 
a prisoner named Cross went out with William Thompson to 
stop the firing, with the sole result that Thompson fell into the 
hands of the enemy. ^^ A little later. Brown despatched another 
flag of truce by Stevens and Watson Brown, with whom 
went Mr. KItzmiller, the acting superintendent of the armory. 
If the citizens understood what the flag meant, they did not 
respect it. Stevens fell, shot twice by George W. Chambers, 
a saloon-keeper, from a window In the Gait House, the slugs 
used inflicting terrible wounds. ^^ Watson Brown, mortally 
wounded a moment earlier than Stevens, dragged himself back 
to the fire-engine house, where his father had now assembled 
the remnants of his band, the slaves he had armed, and eleven 
of the most important prisoners: Washington; the Allstadts; 
Brua; Byrne; Benjamin Mills, the master armorer; A. M. Ball, 
the master machinist; J. E. P. Daingerfield, the paymaster's 
clerk, and others, nearly all of whom testified later in detail 
to the scenes of which they were such unwilling witnesses. 



440 JOHN BROWN 

The remainder of the prisoners were left in the watch-room, 
which comprised a third of the fire-engine house, but was with- 
out a communicating door. Unguarded as they were, these 
watch-room prisoners were too terrified to venture out until 
the arrival of the Martinsburg company in the middle of the 
afternoon. In sharp contrast to their inactivity was the con- 
duct of Mr. Brua, whose humanitarian spirit made him volun- 
teer to go to the aid of Stevens as he lay bleeding in a gutter. 
Thanks to him, Stevens was carried into the Wager House 
and given medical attention. ^^ 

Mr. Brua's deed, the more striking because he again re- 
turned to take his place as a prisoner, has unfortunately been 
overlooked, because of the barbarities attending the killing 
of some of the raiders. For instance, the death, about one 
o'clock in the afternoon, of William H. Leeman, the youngest 
of Brown's men, has frequently been cited to prove the "sav- 
agery " which the raiders encountered. About the time that 
Stevens and Watson Brown were wounded, Leeman made an 
attempt from the upper end of the yard to escape across the 
Potomac, a little above the bridge. He soon found himself 
under such a heavy fire that he stopped on a tiny islet. Ac- 
cording to a generally accepted story, he was here killed, after 
he had surrendered, by a citizen, G. A. Schoppert, who, it was 
alleged, deliberately placed his weapon at the unarmed eight- 
een-year-old boy's head before shooting. In 1900, Mr. Schop- 
pert made an affidavit that Leeman had a pistol and a knife 
when killed, and that he refused to surrender when called on 
to do so. In his assertion that this was a justifiable killing, Mr. 
Schoppert had the support of Colonel J. T. Gibson, an eye- 
witness. It remains, however, a melancholy fact that the lad's 
body, lying for hours in plain sight on the rock, was riddled 
and mutilated repeatedly by whole companies, as well as by 
individuals who found the dead Abolitionist an attractive 
target, particularly from the bridge. ^^ Unfortunately for the 
troops, the bars at the Wager House and the Gait House were 
not affected by the street-fighting that went on, and contin- 
ued to dispense liquor, with disastrous results to the morale 
of the troops as the hours passed. ^^ 

About two o'clock the death of George W. Turner, a slave- 
holder, a farmer of means and prominence in the vicinity of 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 441 

Harper's Ferry, still further inflamed the citizens. A graduate 
of West Point, who had seen service in the Seminole War in 
Florida, ^^ he rode to town carrying his shot-gun, and was shot 
in the neck and instantly killed. According to one narrative, 
he was in the act of firing on two of the raiders when a bullet 
from them struck him ; it was also related that he was killed 
while talking to a traveller who had strayed in from one of 
the delayed Baltimore and Ohio trains. ^^ In any event, his 
death added greatly to the excitement of the Harper's Fer- 
rians. But it was the shooting of the mayor of the town, Fon- 
taine Beckham, which roused the citizens of Harper's Ferry 
to the highest pitch of indignation. Mr. Beckham, the agent 
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Harper's Ferry for the 
twenty-five years since its opening, had been a magistrate 
in Jefferson County for an even longer period. Sincerely at- 
tached to his helper, Hayward, and much agitated by his 
death, which occurred about four o'clock. Mayor Beckham, in 
his extreme nervousness, several times ventured out on the 
railroad in order to observe what was going on, though warned 
not to do so. From the engine house it looked as if he were 
trying to get a favorable position from w^hich to shoot. To 
this Mr. John Thomas Allstadt testifies, for he was near 
Edwin Coppoc when the latter fired : ^^ 

" Now Mr. Beckham went behind the water tank and began peering 
around its corner, as it might be to take aim. ' If he keeps on peeking, 
I 'm going to shoot,' said Coppoc, from his seat in the doorway. I 
stood close by him. Mr. Beckham peeked again and Coppoc fired, 
but missed. 'Don't fire, man, for God's sake! they'll shoot in here 
and kill us all,' shrieked the prisoners from behind. Some were 
laughing, others overwhelmed with fear. But Coppoc was already 
firing again. This shot killed Beckham. Undoubtedly he would not 
have been fired upon but for his equivocal appearance. Coppoc fired 
no more from the watch-house; in fact, no one remained in sight. 
But Brown's son, Oliver, sitting in the partly open engine-house 
door, spied someone peeping over the stone wall of the trestle in the 
act of sighting a gun. Young Brown instantly took aip ; but even as 
he was in the act of firing, the other's shot struck him — a mortal 
wound that gave horrible pain." 

The unarmed mayor died instantly, and his death was all 
that was needed to incite the now half-drunken and uncon- 
trolled crowd around the Wager House to the worst killing of 



442 JOHN BROWN 

the day. William Thompson, with the wounded Stevens, was 
now a captive in the hotel. Mad with the desire to revenge 
Beckham's death,* the mob, headed by George W. Chambers, 
the saloon-keeper, and Harry Hunter, of Charlestown, at- 
tempted to make way with him in the hotel itself. A brief 
respite was secured to Thompson by a Miss Christine Fouke, 
who begged that his life be spared, from the mixed motive, 
as she afterwards explained, of a desire to have the law take 
its course and to save the house from becoming the scene of 
an outrage! 2^ What happened then was narrated by Harry 
Hunter during John Brown's trial, in answer to a question 
from his father, Andrew Hunter, the special prosecutor on 
behalf of the State: 

"After Mr. Beckham, who was my grand-uncle, was shot, I was 
much exasperated, and started with Mr. Chambers to the room 
where the second Thompson was confined, with the purpose of 
shooting him. We found several persons in the room, and had 
leveled our guns at him, when Mrs. Fouke's sister threw herself 
before him, and begged us to leave him to the laws. We then caught 
hold of him, and dragged him out by the throat, he saying: 'Though 
you may take my life, 80,000,000 f will arise up to avenge me, and 
carry out my purpose of giving liberty to the slaves.' We carried 
him out to the bridge, and two of us, leveling our guns in this mo- 
ment of wild exasperation, fired, and before he fell, a dozen or more 
balls were buried in him; we then threw his body off the trestle- 
work, and returned to the bridge to bring out the prisoner Stevens, 
and serve him in the same way; we found him suffering from his 
wounds, and probably dying; we concluded to spare him, and start 
after others, and shoot all we could find. I had just seen my loved 
uncle and best friend I ever had, shot down by those villainous 
Abolitionists, and felt justified in shooting any that I could find; I 
felt it my duty, and I have no regrets." " 

William Thompson was shot by Chambers and Hunter with 
their revolvers at his head, and thrust through the open space 
between the roadway and the side of the bridge. As he lay 

* Mr. Beckham's friendliness to the negro appears from the fact that at the time 
of his death he was aiding one, Isaac Gilbert, to purchase the freedom of his wife 
and three children. As if foreseeing a sudden death, the mayor had made a will 
insuring the freedom of these four slaves, whom he had purchased in order to 
facilitate their liberation. See Will Book No. 16, p. 142, Jefferson County Court 
Records, Charlestown, West Virginia. 

t Other reports quote Thompson as having said "80,000." 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 443 

In the shallow water below, he, too, was riddled with bullets. 
The body, says a local historian, "could be seen for a day or 
two after, lying at the bottom of the river, with his ghastly 
face still exhibiting his fearful death agony." ^s Making all 
due allowance for the naturally intense indignation aroused 
by the killing of so universally beloved a man as Mayor 
Beckham, and for the horrors of the day, the killing of Thomp- 
son was none the less a disgrace to the State of Virginia. It 
loses nothing of its barbarity with the lapse of years. It Is a 
pleasure, however, to record that the best public sentiment of 
Harper's Ferry and Charlestown has always condemned the 
act. This crime must also in part be offset by Brua's readi- 
ness to risk his life on behalf of Stevens, and by other high- 
minded acts on the part of the citizens. Yet it remains in 
striking contrast to the kindliness and courtesy with which 
John Brown treated his prisoners, In keeping with the dictates 
of the Chatham Constitution and with his own character. 
This generous treatment was freely acknowledged by his 
prisoners, one of whom, J. E. P. Dalngerfield, declined to 
attend John Brown's execution, because "he had made me a 
prisoner, but had spared my life and that of other gentlemen 
in his power; and when his sons were shot down beside him, 
almost any other man similarly situated would have exacted 
life for life." 39 

Just after Mr. Beckham's death, there arrived, to add to 
the excitement, a sturdy Martinsburg company, composed 
largely of employees of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 
Headed by Captain E. G. Alburtis, they very nearly ended the 
conflict, for they boldly marched through the armory yard 
from the rear, thus cutting off Brown's only remaining avenue 
of escape, and engaged the raiders at close range, driving them 
into the engine house, during which manoeuvre the company 
lost eight of Its men by wounds. " During the fight," Captain 
Alburtis narrated afterwards, 

"we found In the room adjoining the engine-house some thirty or 
forty prisoners who had been captured and confined by the outlaws. 
The windows were broken open by our party, and these men es- 
caped. The whole of the outlaws were now driven Into the engine- 
house, and owing to the great number of wounded requiring our 
care, and not being supported by the other companies as we ex- 



444 JOHN BROWN 

pected, we were obliged to return. Had the other companies come 
up, we could have taken the engine-house then. Immediately after 
we drew off, there was a flag of truce sent out to propose terms, 
which were that they should be permitted to retire across the river 
with their arms, and, I think, proceed as far as some lock on the 
canal, there to release their prisoners. These terms were not acceded 
to, and having understood that the United States marines and a 
number of troops from Baltimore were on their way, nothing fur- 
ther was done except to establish guards all around to prevent the 
desperadoes from escaping. We had a small piece of cannon, which 
we proposed to bring to bear on the engine-house, but were directed 
not to do so on account of endangering the prisoners." *" 

These captives were later a convenient excuse to explain 
the militia's shortcomings. Immediately after the arrival of 
the Martinsburg company, other troops began to pour in. 
Itself, like the second Charlestown company, organized on the 
spur of the moment, the Martinsburg organization was fol- 
lowed by two Shepherdstown, Virginia, militia companies, 
theHamtramck Guards and the Shepherdstown Troop, which, 
however, accomplished but little. At dusk three companies 
from Frederick, Maryland, appeared; they were the first uni- 
formed troops to report. ^1 They, too, added to the noise and 
confusion of the streets, but were of little or no avail. For 
all practical purposes, John Brown and his handful of men 
had beaten off the several hundred armed citizens and mili- 
tia who had come to capture him, living or dead. Later in 
the evening a Winchester company arrived, as did five Bal- 
timore militia companies, which did not enter the town from 
Sandy Hook until morning. ^^ Governor Wise and Company 
F of Richmond arrived five hours after the engine house was 
taken. 

The record of the tragedies of the 17th of October at 
Harper's Ferry is not complete with the violent deaths of 
Beckham and William Thompson. On the Shenandoah, John 
Brown's outposts in the rifle works were slain or captured at 
about the same hour that the arsenal garrison was finally 
driven into the engine house. Kagi's early morning requests 
that the town be evacuated having met with no consideration 
at John Brown's hands, he and his men, hungry, isolated and 
menaced by more and more armed men, continued to obey 
orders and stick to their posts in true soldierly fashion. But 



V i 








" i.riir,S,1 



//^ 



J 




HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 445 

the energetic Dr. Starry was mindful of their exposed and 
isolated position, and the opportunity it offered. 

"I organized a party," he testified afterwards, "about half-past 
two or three o'clock, and sent them over there with directions to 
commence the fight as soon as they got near enough ; that party was 
under the command of a young man named Irwin. He went over, 
and at the first fire Kagi, and the others who were with him in 
Hall's [the Rifle] Works, went out the back way towards the Win- 
chester railroad, climbed out on the railroad and into the Shenan- 
doah River. They were met on the opposite side by a party who 
were there and driven back. . . ." 

Mr. A. R. Boteler, the Congressman from the Harper's 
Ferry district, was an eye-witness of what happened. The 
three raiders made for a large flat rock near the middle of the 
stream. Before reaching it, Kagi "fell and died in the water, 
apparently without a struggle;" Lewis Sheridan Leary was 
mortally wounded, and John A. Copeland was captured by a 
Harper's Ferrian, James H. Holt by name, who waded out to 
him as Schoppert had to Leeman. But Holt's gun, like Cope- 
land's rifle, failed to go off because of its having become wet. 
Copeland surrendered as Holt, clubbing his gun, was about to 
knock him down. As soon as Copeland was brought to the 
bank, there were cries of: "Lynch him!" Fortunately, Dr. 
Starry rode up as the citizens, now near the armory wall with 
their prisoner, were tying their handkerchiefs together that 
they might hang the trembling negro. But Dr. Starry was not 
of the bloodthirsty kind. To his credit, and that of Harper's 
Ferry, he shielded Copeland by getting him into a corner and 
covering him with the horse who had carried his master so 
faithfully all day. In a little while a policeman arrived, and, 
Dr. Starry still holding back the crowd, Copeland was taken 
off to a safe place, thus escaping William Thompson's fate. 
Leary, the wounded negro, was in no wise molested, dying 
late the following night." 

Two men alone, of those of the Provisional Army who 
remained in the town after the Maryland bridge was taken 
by the Jefferson Guards, escaped from the Ferry, — Albert 
Hazlett and Osborn P. Anderson. The latter, the colored 
raider from Canada, subsequently wrote a misleading and 
exaggerated account of their escape from the armory, in 



446 JOHN BROWN 

which he states that they remained at their posts until the 
final capture of Tuesday. This is, however, incredible. It is 
not possible that they could have gone scot-free In daylight, 
when Lee's marines were everywhere on guard and the town 
swarmed with excited militia. In all probability they left 
their posts in the arsenal about nightfall on Monday, when 
everybody was watching the armory yard and the engine 
house. According to Anderson, they first went along the 
Shenandoah and climbed the hill just out of town, where they 
lay concealed for three hours; then, returning into the town 
along the river, they found an old boat and crossed in it to 
the Maryland side. If this, too, seems incredible, their escape 
by whatever means was miraculous, for they did reach the 
Kennedy Farm, and from there found their way into Pennsyl- 
vania, where Hazlett was finally captured. Of the rear-guard 
on the Maryland side, John E. Cook alone ventured back to 
the Ferry bridge, late in the afternoon of Monday. He had 
been on guard in the school-house to which Tidd and Owen 
Brown were moving arms, and had conversed quite freely with 
the schoolmaster, explaining the purposes of the attack and 
the views of the raiders.^"* He distinctly heard the firing, 
but not until four o'clock, when a second wagon-load of arms 
was brought to the school-house, did he feel free to leave. To 
acquaintances along the road he openly admitted his connec- 
tion with the raiders. When opposite the Ferry, he scaled the 
mountain in order to get a view of what was going on, and 
beheld his comrades cooped up in the engine house with the 
citizens firing on them. As, he confessed after his capture, 

"I saw that our party were completely surrounded, and as I saw 
a body of men on High Street firing down upon them — they were 
about half a mile distant from me — I thought I would draw their 
firing upon myself; I therefore raised my rifle and took the best aim 
I could and fired. It had the desired effect, for the very instant the 
party returned it. Several shots were exchanged. The last one they 
fired cut a small limb I had hold of just below my hand, and gave 
me a fall of about fifteen feet by which I was severely bruised and 
my flesh somewhat lacerated." 

He then descended to the canal and returned to the school- 
house, where he rejoined the rear-guard, now comprising Owen 
Brown, Barclay Coppoc, Meriam, Tidd, and several of the 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 447 

negroes liberated and armed. All of the latter left the raiders 
before the coming night passed. 

With the disappearance of Cook, the withdrawal of Al- 
burtis and the coming of night, the active hostilities of the 
day ceased. In loose fashion the militia picketed the engine 
house. A citizen, Samuel Strider by name, tied a handkerchief 
to his umbrella and delivered a summons to surrender," to 
which John Brown replied by the following note: 

Capt. John Brown answers: 

In consideration of all my men, whether living or dead, or 
wounded, being soon safely in and delivered up to me at this point 
with all their arms and amunition, we will then take our prisoners 
and cross the Potomac bridge, a little beyond which we will set them 
at liberty; after which we can negotiate about the Government 
property as may be best. Also we require the delivery of our horse 
and harness at the hotel. 

John Brown. 

To this Colonel Baylor answered briefly that he could not 
accept the terms proposed; that under no conditions would 
he consent to a removal of the citizens across the river. ''^ 
When the Frederick companies arrived, one of the captains, 
Sinn by name, went close up to the engine-house. Being 
hailed from there, he promptly entered, conversing at length 
with John Brown, who was then, as during the entire fight, 
wearing the sword of Frederick the Great. To Captain Sinn 
Brown again stated his terms, complaining also that his men 
when bearing flags of truce had been shot down like dogs. 
To this Captain Sinn replied that men who took up arms 
that way must expect to be shot down like dogs. John Brown's 
answer was that he knew what he had to undergo before he 
came there, "he had weighed the responsibility and should 
not shrink from it." He had had full possession of the town 
and could have massacred all the inhabitants had he thought 
proper to do so; hence he believed himself entitled to some 
terms. He insisted that he and his followers had killed no 
unarmed men. When told that Beckham was without any 
weapon when killed, he expressed deep regret. They then 
parted. Captain Sinn, who seems to have been a soldier of 
a fine type, recorded his disgust with conditions among the 
citizens.*^ Many of them were hopelessly intoxicated, only 



448 JOHN BROWN 

a few of them were under any discipline or control, all of 
them had guns, and some, according to Captain Sinn and 
others, were firing their guns in the air all night, whooping 
and yelling, and generally behaving as if the enemy were to 
be exorcised by noise and bravado. Entering the Wager 
House, the chivalrous Sinn found some young men taunting 
the gravely wounded Stevens and pointing their revolvers 
at him, but without in the least causing him to flinch. It was 
not the first time that day that death had thus approached 
Stevens, but it was the last, for Sinn drove the men out, say- 
ing: " If this man could stand on his feet with a pistol in his 
hand, you would all jump out of the window." * But Captain 
Sinn did not weary of well-doing here; he induced the surgeon 
of his command, a Dr. Taylor, of Frederick, to staunch the 
wounds of Watson Brown, in the engine house. The surgeon 
did so and promised to return early in the morning, ^^ but 
by that time the engine-house was stormed and his patient, 
in extremis, beyond all surgical aid. This was a curious epi- 
sode in what was a unique American tragedy; where else 
have men killed, then met and conversed with one another 
and aided the wounded, and then killed again? 

With the withdrawal of Captain Sinn and Dr. Taylor, the 
engine house composed itself for the night. Prisoners and 
raiders lay down on the brick floor to get such rest as they 
could; the morrow, they all knew, would seal the raiders' 
fate. The doors, shut and barred, did not keep out the yell- 
ing of the drunken soldiery. But within all was dark; the 
liberators had no light; it was intensely cold. 

" In the quiet of the night," the younger Allstadt remembers, 
"young Oliver Brown died. He had begged again and again to be 
shot, in the agony of his wound, but his father had replied to him, 
'Oh you will get over it,' and, 'If you must die, die like a man.' 
Now John Brown talked, from time to time, with my father and with 
Colonel Washington, but I did not hear what was said. Oliver 
Brown lay quietly over in a corner. His father called to him, after 
a time. No answer. 'I guess he is dead,' said Brown." ^^ 

* Later, during the trial, Captain Sinn showed an equally fine spirit in going 
to Charlestown on a summons from John Brown to testify in his behalf, "so that 
Northern men would have no opportunity to say that Southern men were unwill- 
ing to appear as witnesses on behalf of one whose principles they abhorred." 




JOHN H. KAGl 



A. U. STEVENS 





OLIVER BROWN WATSON BROWN 

VICTIMS OF HARPER'S FERRY 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 449 

Near his brother, Watson lay quietly breathing his young 
life away. Stewart Taylor, the young Canadian, shot like 
Oliver in the doorway of the engine house, lay dead near-by. 
There were left alive and unwounded but five men, the com- 
mander-in-chief, Edwin Coppoc, J. G. Anderson, Dauphin 
Thompson and Shields Green. John Brown himself, though 
plainly anxious to have his terms accepted, betrayed no trepi- 
dation whatever. Although now over forty hours without 
sleep, he sought no rest. "Men, are you awake?" he asked 
from time to time in the stillness of the night. John E. P. 
Daingerfield remembered a talk with John Brown that night, 
in which he told him that the raiders were committing treason 
against the State and the United States. "Two of his men, 
hearing the conversation, said to their leader, 'Are we com- 
mitting treason against our country by being here?' Brown 
answered, ' Certainly.' Both declared, ' If that is so, we don't 
want to fight any more. We thought we came to liberate the 
slaves and did not know that that was committing treason.' " 
At the break of dawn, these two young men, Dauphin Thomp- 
son and Jeremiah G. Anderson, gave up their lives on the 
bayonets of the marines. ^'^ 

For representatives of the Federal Government had ap- 
peared on the scene; as the raiders learned from the friendly 
Captain Sinn, the United States marines had arrived and had 
supplanted the loose oversight of the militia with the sharp 
patrolling and guarding of regular soldiers. The news of the 
raid had stirred official Washington to prompt action early 
in the day. President Buchanan telegraphed at 1.30 to the 
president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that three 
companies of artillery had been sent from Fort Alonroe, and 
that he had accepted the services of Captain Ritchie's militia 
company at Fredericksburg, Maryland. ^^ After sending the 
despatch, he also ordered to Harper's P>rry the only United 
States force in Washington, — a small company of marines 
at the navy yard, commanded by Lieutenant Israel Green. 
Mr. Buchanan's despatch did not satisfy the alarmed Mr. 
Garrett, who replied that his agents reported no less than 
seven hundred blacks and whites in possession of the Har- 
per's Ferry arsenal. " It is a moment full of peril," he added." 

The raid now brought to the front two ofificers, both tem- 



450 JOHN BROWN 

porarily in Washington, who were soon to write their names 
large upon the pages of history. Since the raid on Harper's 
Ferry itself was to be in its every aspect a prologue to 1861, 
it was eminently fitting that the most conspicuous military 
roles should fall to Brevet-Colonel Robert E. Lee, then lieu- 
tenant-colonel of the Second United States Cavalry, and to 
First Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, of the First Cavalry, to 
whom many students of military history assign first place 
among American cavalry generals. Their subsequent careers 
in the Confederate Army make it singularly suggestive that 
they should have been the ones to end John Brown's attack 
upon slavery, since it was in defence of slavery that they were 
so soon to draw their swords against the very government 
at whose behest they went to Harper's Ferry. Both officers 
attended a conference at the White House with the Presi- 
dent and the Secretary of War, Mr. Floyd, and both set out 
that afternoon for Harper's Ferry, Lee to command all the 
troops, under his brevet commission, and Stuart to act as 
his aide.^^ They overtook the marines at Sandy Hook, a 
mile and a half from Harper's Ferry, at eleven o'clock that 
night, and marched them at once to the armory. Here the 
marines were so disposed about the engine house that no one 
could escape during the night. Lee then made all his prepa- 
rations to attack at daylight, thus adopting John Brown's 
own policy of going at once to close quarters. "But for the 
fear of sacrificing the lives of some of the gentlemen held by 
them as prisoners in a midnight assault," Colonel Lee after- 
wards reported, "I should have ordered the attack at once." 
What happened next, Lieutenant Stuart later described 
in these words: 

"Within two hours of that time [midnight], say by two a.m., 
Colonel Lee communicated to me his determination to demand a 
surrender of the whole party at first dawn, and in case of refusal, 
which he expected, he would have ready a few picked men, who 
were at a signal to take the place at once with the bayonet. He 
chose to demand a surrender before attacking, because he wanted 
every chance to save the prisoners unhurt, and to attack with bayo- 
nets for the same reason." . . .^* "I, too, had a part to perform, which 
prevented me in a measure from participating in the very brief onset 
made so gallantly by Green and Russell, well backed by their men. 
I was deputed by Col. Lee to read to the leader, then called Smith, 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 451 

a demand to surrender immediately; and I was instructed to leave 
the door after his refusal, which was expected, and wave my cap; at 
which signal the storming party was to advance, batter open the 
doors, and capture the insurgents at the point of the bayonet. Col. 
Lee cautioned the stormers particularly to discriminate between 
the insurgents and their prisoners. I approached the door in the 
presence of perhaps 2000 spectators, and told Mr. Smith that I had 
a communication for him from Col. Lee. He opened the door about 
four inches, and placed his body against the crack, with a cocked 
carbine in his hand : hence his remark after his capture that he could 
have wiped me out like a mosquito. The parley was a long one. He 
presented his propositions in every possible shape, and with admira- 
ble tact; but all amounted to this: that the only condition upon 
which he would surrender was that he and his party should be al- 
lowed to escape. Some of his prisoners begged me to ask Col. Lee 
to come and see him. I told them he would never accede to any 
terms but those he had offered ; and so soon as I could tear myself 
away from their importunities, I left the door and waved my cap, 
and Col. Lee's plan was carried out. When Smith first came to 
the door, I recognized old Osawatomie Brown, who had given us so 
much trouble in Kansas. No one present but myself could have per- 
formed that service. I got his bowie knife from his person and have 
it yet."'' 

The demand submitted to John Brown by Lieutenant Stuart 

read as follows : ^' 

Headquarters Harper's Ferry, 
October i8, 1859. 
Colonel Lee, United States army, commanding the troops sent 
by the President of the United States to suppress the insurrection 
at this place, demands the surrender of the persons in the armory 
buildings. 

If they will peaceably surrender themselves and restore the pil- 
laged property, they shall be kept in safety to await the orders of 
the President. Colonel Lee represents to them, in all frankness, that 
it is impossible for them to escape; that the armory is surrounded 
on all sides by troops; and that if he is compelled to take them by^ 
force he cannot answer for their safety. 

R. E. Lee. 
Colonel Commanding United States Troops. 

Even this letter failed to induce John Brown to surrender, 
and his decision thus taken caused three deaths within fifteen 
minutes, two of them of his own men, in the blind and pur- 
poseless struggle against overwhelming numbers. "My ob- 
ject was, with a view to saving our citizens, to have as short 
an interval as possible between the summons and attack," 



452 JOHN BROWN 

Colonel Lee reported officially ; and the whole proceeding was 
marked by the despatch and efficiency characteristic of well- 
disciplined regular troops. Colonel Lee, who was in civilian 
clothes, stood on a slight elevation, about forty feet away, 
and supervised the whole undertaking. In the early morning 
hours he had offered the honor of storming the engine house 
to the volunteer soldiery," but this was declined by Colonel 
Shriver, of the Frederick, Maryland, troops, who seems at this 
time to have been more in control than the senior Virginia 
Colonel, Baylor, who had superseded Colonel John T. Gib- 
son. Colonel Shriver said that he had only come to help the 
people of Harper's Ferry. * * These men of mine have wives and 
children at home. I will not expose them to such risks. You 
are paid for doing this kind of work."^^ Colonel Baylor also 
declined the honor, afterwards assigning the same reason. ^^ 
But the "mercenaries," as Colonel Baylor called the marines, 
looked at the matter in a different light. When Colonel Lee 
turned to Lieutenant Israel Green and asked him whether 
he wished the honor of "taking those men out," Lieutenant 
Green at once, with soldierly courtesy, took off his hat and 
thanked Colonel Lee simply and sincerely.^" He then picked 
a storming detail of twelve men, with a reserve of a similar 
number, and gave them the most careful instructions. At 
sunrise, when Lieutenant Stuart gave his signal, Green, with 
the greatest sang-froid, ordered the attack to begin. Neither 
he nor his men had been under fire before, but it made no 
difference in their bearing. Lieutenant Green himself was 
armed only with a light dress sword which he had picked up 
as he hastily left his quarters, ignorant of the duty for which 
he and his men were ordered out." Near him, as a volunteer, 
stood a senior in rank, one of his own corps. Major W. W. 
Russell, who, as a paymaster and staff officer, could not take 
active command. Major Russell carried nothing but a rat- 
tan cane, yet he risked his life with nonchalance.^'^ 

Three marines, armed with sledge-hammers, began bat- 
tering at the heavy doors of the engine-house, with slight 
success. A heavy ladder lay near by. Perceiving that. Lieu- 
tenant Green ordered his men to use it as a battering-ram. 
The door was broken in at the second blow. Up to this time, 
the few shots fired from within the engine house had struck 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 453 

no one of the storming party. Within, said Colonel Washing- 
ton, in this supreme moment, John Brown "was the coolest 
and firmest man I ever saw in defying danger and death. 
With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he 
felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand and held his rifle 
with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost 
composure, encouraging them to be firm and to sell their lives 
as dearly as they could." ^^ "The entrance," recorded Lieu- 
tenant Green, in after years, 

"was a ragged hole low down in the right hand door, the door 
being splintered and cracked some distance upward. I instantly 
stepped from my position in front of the stone abutment and entered 
the opening made by the ladder. At the time I did not stop to think 
of it, but upon reflection I should say that Brown had just emptied 
his carbine at the point broken by the ladder, and so I passed 
in safely. Getting to my feet, I ran to the right of the engine, 
which stood behind the door, passed quickly to the rear of the house, 
and came up between the two engines. The first person I saw was 
Colonel Lewis Washington, who was standing near the hose-cart, 
at the front of the engine-house. On one knee, a few feet to the left, 
knelt a man with a carbine in his hand, just pulling the lever to 
reload." '* 

Colonel Washington greeted Green, whom he knew, calmly, 
and pointed Brown out to him, saying, "This is Osawatomie." 
What happened then was variously related by the several 
witnesses and by Lieutenant Green himself. It would seem 
as though Green sprang at Brown, lunging at him with his 
light sword and bringing him to his knees. The sword bent 
double in striking Brown's belt or a bone; taking the bent 
weapon in both hands. Lieutenant Green showered blows 
upon Brown's, head, which laid him flat, brought the blood, 
and seemed to the onlookers as if they must reach the skull.^^ 
But fortunately for Brown and for his "greatest or principal 
object," the weapon was too light to inflict a mortal wound. 
All unawares. Lieutenant Green, by failing to buckle on his 
regulation sabre, had done a profound service to the cause 
that John Brown had at heart, and that Green, later a Con- 
federate officer, though born in the North, hated. Men have 
carved their way to kingdoms by the stoutness of their sw^ords, 
but here was one who by the flimsiness of his blade permitted 



454 JOHN BROWN 

his enemy to live to thrill half a nation by his spoken and 
written word. 

At the time, however, it seemed as if Brown had perished 
as did Jeremiah Anderson and Dauphin Thompson. As the 
marines followed their lieutenant through the aperture, a shot 
rang out, and the first man. Private Luke Quin, went down, 
with a mortal wound. The next marine behind him was 
gravely wounded in the face. Jumping over their fallen com- 
rades, the other marines were in no spirit to be gentle. "They 
came rushing in," said their officer, 

"like tigers, as a storming assault is not a play-day sport. They 
bayoneted one man skulking under the engine, and pinned another 
fellow up against the rear wall, both being instantly killed.* I or- 
dered the men to spill no more blood. The other insurgents were at 
once taken under arrest, and the contest ended. The whole fight had 
not lasted over three minutes." 

As for the eleven prisoners, they were, recorded Lieuten- 
ant Green, "the sorriest lot of people I ever saw. They had 
been without food for over sixty hours, in constant dread of 
being shot, and were huddled up in the corner where lay the 
body of Brown's son and one or two others of the insurgents 
who had been killed." The dead, dying and badly wounded 
raiders were then carried out and laid on the grass in the 
armory yard. Of John Brown's force of twenty-two, he him- 
self, his second in command, Stevens, two negroes, Copeland 
and Green, and Edwin Coppoc were in the enemy's hands. 
Watson Brown lived twenty hours after being taken from the 
engine-house; the bodies of nine others lay in front of their 
fort or scattered about the town. The remainder, seven in 
number, were already well started on their way toward 
Pennsylvania. Colonel Lee saw to it that the captured sur- 
vivors were protected and treated with kindliness and con- 
sideration. ^^ For Watson Brown, too, there was a good 
Samaritan, also a Southerner, C. W. Tayleure, a reporter of 
a Baltimore newspaper, who wrote to John Brown, Jr., just 
twenty years after the event, this touching story of Watson 
Brown's death : " 

♦ According to other statements, Anderson did not die for some time after his 
removal from the engine house. Both Thompson and Anderson seem to have 
cried out as the marines came in that they surrendered. 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 455 

" I am a South Carolinian, and at the time of the raid was very 
deeply imbued with the political prejudices of my State; but the 
serenity, calm courage, and devotion to duty which your father and 
his followers then manifested impressed me very profoundly. It is 
impossible not to feel respect for men who offer up their lives in 
support of their convictions, and the earnestness of my respect I put 
upon record in a Baltimore paper the day succeeding the event. I 
gave your brother a cup of water to quench his thirst (this was at 
about 7.30 on the morning of the capture) and improvised a couch 
for him out of a bench, with a pair of overalls for a pillow. I remem- 
ber how he looked, — singularly handsome, even through the grime 
of his all-day struggles, and the intense suffering which he must 
have endured. He was very calm, and of a tone and look very gen- 
tle. The look with which he searched my very heart I can never 
forget One sentence of our conversation will give you the keynote 
to the whole. I asked him, 'What brought you here?' He replied, 
very patiently, ' Duty, sir.' After a pause, I again asked: ' Is it then 
your idea of duty to shoot men down upon their own hearth-stones 
for defending their rights?' He answered: 'I am dying; I cannot 
discuss the question; I did my duty as I saw it.' This conversation 
occurred in the compartment of the engine-house adjoining that 
in which the defence had been made, and was listened to by young 
Coppoc with perfect equanimity, and by Shields Green with un- 
controllable terror." 

John Brown himself was carried to the office of the pay- 
master of the armory and there given medical attention, it 
soon appearing that his wounds were far less serious than at 
first supposed. But the end of the Provisional Army had come; 
John Brown's armed blow at slavery was spent. 

"And they are themselves mistaken who take him to be a mad- 
man. He is a bundle of the best nerves I ever saw cut and thrust 
and bleeding and in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage, 
fortitude and simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected and in- 
domitable, and it is but just to him to say that he was humane to 
his prisoners as attested to me by Colonel Washington and Mr. 
Mills, and he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man 
of truth. He is a fanatic, vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful and 
intelligent. His men, too, who survive, except the free negroes with 
him, are like him." 

Thus spoke Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia, on his 
return to Richmond from his visit to Harper's Ferry.^^ ^ The 
interview with Brown upon which he predicated this opinion 
took place shortly after the Governor's arrival, at about one 



456 JOHN BROWN 

in the afternoon, in the paymaster's office, where A. D. 
Stevens had been carried to He alongside of his leader. There 
have been few more dramatic scenes in American history ; few 
upon which the shadows of coming events were more omi- 
nously cast. The two wounded prisoners, their hair clotted and 
tangled, their faces, hands and clothing powder-stained and 
blood-smeared, lay upon what the reporter of the New York 
Herald, who preserved for posterity this interview, called their 
"miserable shakedowns, covered with some old bedding." 
Near them stood Robert E. Lee, J. E. B. Stuart, Senator J. M. 
Mason, Governor Wise, Congressman Vallandigham, of Ohio, 
Colonel Lewis Washington, Andrew Hunter, and Congress- 
man Charles James Faulkner, of Virginia, — nearly all des- 
tined soon to play important roles, the first four in the Con- 
federacy that was to come into being. 

The courteous Colonel Lee began the interview by saying 
that he would exclude all visitors from the room if the 
wounded men were annoyed or pained thereby. To this John 
Brown answered that he was "glad to make himself and his 
motives clearly understood." 

"He converses freely, fluently and cheerfully, without the slight- 
est manifestation of fear or uneasiness, evidently weighing well his 
words, and possessing a good command of language. His manner is 
courteous and affable, while he appears to be making a favorable 
impression upon his auditory, which during most of the day yes- 
terday averaged about ten or a dozen men," 

wrote the Herald representative. A reporter of the Baltimore 
American who was also present at the interview declared that 
during the conversation "no sign of weakness was exhibited by 
John Brown." «3 

In the midst of enemies, whose home he had invaded ; wounded 
and a prisoner, surrounded by a small army of officials, and a more 
desperate army of angry men; with the gallows staring him full in 
the face, he lay on the floor, and, in reply to every question, gave 
answers that betokened the spirit that animated him. The language 
of Gov. Wise well expresses his boldness when he said 'He is the 
gamest man I ever saw.'" 

From the long Herald interview, lasting fully three hours, 
the following are excerpts : ^° 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 457 

Mr. Mason. — Can you tell us, at least, who furnished the 
money for your expedition? 

Mr. Brown. — I furnished most of it myself. I cannot implicate 
others. It is by my own folly that I have been taken. I could easily 
have saved myself from it had I exercised my own better judgment, 
rather than yielded to my feelings. 

Mr. Mason. — You mean if you had escaped immediately? 

Mr. Broivn. — No; I had the means to make myself secure with- 
out any escape, but I allowed myself to be surrounded by a force by 
being too tardy. 

Mr. Mason. — Tardy in getting away? 

Mr. Brown. — I should have gone away, but I had thirty-odd 
prisoners, whose wives and daughters were in tears for their safety, 
and I felt for them. Besides, I wanted to allay the fears of those who 
believed we came here to burn and kill. For this reason I allowed 
the train to cross the bridge, and gave them full liberty to pass on. 
I did it only to spare the feelings of those passengers and their fami- 
lies, and to allay the apprehensions that you had got here in your 
vicinity a band of men who had no regard for life and property, nor 
any feelings of humanity. 

Mr. Mason. — But you killed some people passing along the 
streets quietly. 

Mr. Broivn. -- Well, sir, if there was anything of that kind done, 
it was without my knowledge. Your own citizens, who were my 
prisoners, will tell you that every possible means were taken to pre- 
vent it. I did not allow my men to fire, nor even to return a fire, 
when there was danger of killing those we regarded as innocent 
persons, if I could help it. They will tell you that we allowed our- 
selves to be fired at repeatedly and did not return it. 

A Bystander. — That is not so. You killed an unarmed man at 
the corner of the house over there (at the water-tank) and another 
besides. 

Mr. Brown. — See here, my friend, it is useless to dispute or 
contradict the report of your own neighbors who were my prisoners. 

Mr. Mason. — If you would tell us who sent you here — who 
provided the means — that would be information of some value. 

Mr. Broivn. — I will answer freely and faithfully about what con- 
cerns myself — I will answer anything I can with honor, but not 
about others. 

Mr. Vallandigham (Member of Congress from Ohio, who had 
just entered). — Mr. Brown, who sent you here? 

Mr. Brown. — No man sent me here; it was my own prompting 
and that of my Maker, or that of the devil, whichever you please 
to ascribe it to. I acknowledge no man in human form. 

Mr. Mason. — How many are engaged with you in this move- 
ment? I ask these questions for our own safety. 

Mr. Brown. — Any questions that I can honorably answer I will, 



458 JOHN BROWN 

not otherwise. So far as I am myself concerned, I have told every- 
thing truthfully. I value my word, sir. 

Mr. Mason. — What was your object in coming? 

Mr. Broivn. — We came to free the slaves, and only that. 

A Young Man (in the uniform of a volunteer company). — How 
many men in all had you? 

Mr. Brown. — I came to Virginia with eighteen men only, besides 
myself. 

Volunteer. — What in the world did you suppose you could do 
here in Virginia with that amount of men? 

Mr. Brown. — Young man, I don't wish to discuss that question 
here. 

Volunteer. — You could not do anything. 

Mr. Brown. — Well, perhaps your ideas and mine on military 
subjects would differ materially. 

Mr. Mason. — How do you justify your acts? 

Mr. Brown. — I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong 
against God and humanity — I say it without wishing to be offen- 
sive — and it would be perfectly right in any one to interfere with 
you so far as to free those you wilfully and wickedly hold in bondage. 
I do not say this insultingly. 

Mr. Mason. — I understand that. 

Mr. Brown. — I think I did right, and that others will do right to 
interfere with you at any time and all times. I hold that the Golden 
Rule, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto 
you," applies to all who would help others to gain their liberty. 

Lieut. Stuart. — But you don't believe in the Bible. 

Mr. Brown. — Certainly I do. 

Mr. Mason. — Did you consider this a military organization, in 
this paper [the Constitution]? I have not yet read it. 

Mr. Brown. — I did in some sense. I wish you would give that 
paper close attention. 

Mr. Mason. — You considered yourself the Commander-in-Chief 
of these "provisional" military forces. 

Mr. Brown. — I was chosen agreeably to the ordinance of a 
certain document, commander-in-chief of that force. 

Mr. Mason. — What wages did you offer? 

Mr. Broivn. — None. 

Lieut. Stuart. — "The wages of sin is death." 

Mr. Brown. — I would not have made such a remark to you, if 
you had been a prisoner and wounded in my hands. 

A Bystander. — Did you not promise a negro in Gettysburg 
twenty dollars a month? 

Mr. Brown. — I did not. 

Mr. Vallandigham. — When in Cleveland, did you attend the 
Fugitive Slave Law Convention there? 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 459 

Mr. Brown. — No. I was there about the time of the sitting of 
the court to try the OberHn rescuers. I spoke there pubHcly on that 
subject. I spoke on the Fugitive Slave law and my own rescue. Of 
course, so far as I had any influence at all, I was disposed to justify 
the Oberlin people for rescuing the slave, because I have myself 
forcibly taken slaves from bondage. I was concerned in taking 
eleven slaves from Missouri to Canada last winter. I think I spoke 
in Cleveland before the Convention. I do not know that I had any 
conversation with any of the Oberlin rescuers. I was sick part of 
the time I was in Ohio, with the ague. I was part of the time in 
Ashtabula County. 

A Bystander. — Did you go out to Kansas under the auspices of 
the Emigrant Aid Society? 

Mr. Brown. — No, sir; I went out under the auspices of John 
Brown and nobody else. 

Mr. Vallandigham. — Will you answer this: Did you talk with 
Mr. Giddings about your expedition here? 

Mr. Broivn. — No, I won't answer that; because a denial of it I 
would not make, and to make any affirmation of it I should be a 
great dunce. 

Mr. Vallandigham. — Have you had any correspondence with 
parties at the North on the subject of this movement? 

Mr. Brown. — I have had correspondence. 

A Bystander. — Do you consider this a religious movement? 

Mr. Brown. — It is, in my opinion, the greatest service a man 
can render to God. 

Bystander. — Do you consider yourself an instrument in the hands 
of Providence? 

Mr. Brown. — I do. 

Bystander. — Upon what principle do you justify your acts? 

Mr. Brown. — Upon the golden rule. I pity the poor in bondage 
that have none to help them; that is why I am here; not to gratify 
any personal animosity, revenge or vindictive spirit. It is my sym- 
pathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you 
and as precious in the sight of God. 

Bystander. — Certainly. But why take the slaves against their 
will? 

Mr. Brown. — I never did. 

Bystander. — You did in one instance, at least. 

Stevens, the wounded prisoner, here said, in a firm, clear voice: 
"You are right. In one case, I know the negro wanted to go back." 

Mr. Vallandigham (to Mr. Brown). — Who are your advisers in 
this movement? 

Mr. Brown. — I cannot answer that. I have numerous sympa- 
thizers throughout the entire North. 

Mr. Vallandigham. — In northern Ohio? 



460 JOHN BROWN 

Mr. Brown. — No more there than anywhere else; in all the free 
states. 

Mr. Vallandigham. — But you are not personally acquainted in 
southern Ohio? 

Mr. Brown. — Not very much. 

Mr. Vallandigham (to Stevens) . — Were you at the Convention 
last June? 

Stevens. — I was. 

Mr. Vallandigham (to Brown). You made a speech there? 

Mr. Brown. — I did. 

A Bystander. — Did you ever live in Washington city? 

Mr. Brown. — I did not. I want you to understand, gentlemen — 
and [to the reporter of the Herald] you may report that — I want 
you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weak- 
est of colored people, oppressed by the slave system, just as much 
as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful. That is the idea 
that has moved me, and that alone. We expect no reward, except 
the satisfaction of endeavoring to do for those in distress and greatly 
oppressed, as we would be done by. The cry of distress of the 
oppressed is my reason, and the only thing that prompted me to 
come here. 

A Bystander. — Why did you do it secretly? 

Mr. Brown. — Because I thought that necessary to success; no 
other reason. 

Bystander. — And you think that honorable? Have you read 
Gerrit Smith's last letter? 

Mr. Broivn. — What letter do you mean? 

Bystander. — The New York Herald of yesterday, in speaking 
of this affair, mentions a letter in this way: "Apropos of this excit- 
ing news, we recollect a very significant passage in one of Gerrit 
Smith's letters, published a month or two ago, in which he speaks 
of the folly of attempting to strike the shackles off the slaves by the 
force of moral suasion or legal agitation, and predicts that the next 
movement made in the direction of negro emancipation would be 
an insurrection in the South." 

Mr. Brown. — I have not seen the New York Herald for some days 
past; but I presume, from your remark about the gist of the letter, 
that I should concur with it. I agree with Mr. Smith that moral 
suasion is hopeless. I don't think the people of the slave States will 
ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other 
argument is resorted to than moral suasion. 

:■ Mr. Vallandigham. — Did you expect a general rising of the 
slaves in case of your success? 

Mr. Brown. — No, sir; nor did I wish it. I expected to gather 
them up from time to time and set them free. 

Mr. Vallandigham. — Did you expect to hold possession here till 
then? 

Mr. Brown. — Well, probably I had quite a different idea. I do 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 461 

not know that I ought to reveal my plans. I am here a prisoner and 
wounded, because I foolishly allowed myself to be so. You over- 
rate your strength in supposing I could have been taken if I had 
not allowed it. I was too tardy after commencing the open attack 

— in delaying my movements through Monday night, and up to 
that time I was attacked by the government troops. It was all occa- 
sioned by my desire to spare the feelings of my prisoners and their 
families and the community at large. I had no knowledge of the 
shooting of the negro [Haj^ward]. 

Mr. Vallandigham. — What time did you commence your or- 
ganization in Canada? 

Mr. Brown. — That occurred about two years ago, if I remem- 
ber right. It was, I think, in 1858. 

Mr. Vallandigham. — Who was the Secretary? 

Mr. Brown. — That I would not tell if I recollected, but I do 
not recollect. I think the officers were elected in May, 1858. I may 
answer incorrectly, but not intentionally. My head is a little con- 
fused by wounds, and my memory obscure on dates, etc. 

Dr. Biggs. — Were you in the party at Dr. Kennedy's house? 

Mr. Brown. — I was at the head of that party. I occupied the house 
to mature my plans. I have not been in Baltimore to purchase caps. 

Dr. Biggs. — What was the number of men at Kennedy's? 

Mr. Brown. — I decline to answer that. 

Dr. Biggs. — Who lanced that woman's neck on the hill? 

Mr. Brown. — I did. I have sometimes practised in surgery 
when I thought it a matter of humanity and necessity, and there 
was no one else to do it, but I have not studied surgery. 

Dr. Biggs. — It was done very well and scientifically. They have 
been very clever to the neighbors, I have been told, and we had no 
reason to suspect them except that we could not understand their 
movements. They were represented as eight or nine persons; on 
Friday there were thirteen. 

Mr. Brow7i. — There were more than that. 

Reporter of the Herald. — I do not wish to annoy you; but if you 
have anything further you would like to say I will report it. 

Mr. Brown. — I have nothing to say, only that I claim to be 
here in carrying out a measure I believe perfectly justifiable, and 
not to act the part of an incendiary or ruffian, but to aid those suf- 
fering great wrong. I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better 

— all you people at the South — prepare yourselves for a settle- 
ment of that question that must come up for settlement sooner than 
you are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared the better. 
You may dispose of me very easily; I am nearly disposed of now; 
but this question is still to be settled — this negro question I mean 

— the end of that is not yet. These wounds were inflicted upon 
me — both sabre cuts on my head and bayonet stabs in the different 
parts of my body — some minutes after I had ceased fighting and 



462 JOHN BROWN 

had consented to a surrender, for the benefit of others, not for my 
own. [This statement was vehemently denied all around.]* I be- 
lieve the major [meaning Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, of the United 
States Cavalry]! would not have been alive; I could have killed 
him just as easy as a mosquito when he came in, but I supposed he 
came in only to receive our surrender. There had been loud and 
long calls of "surrender" from us — as loud as men could yell — 
but in the confusion and excitement I suppose we were not heard. 
I do not think the major, or any one, meant to butcher us after 
we had surrendered. 

An officer here stated that the orders to the marines were not to 
shoot anybody; but when they were fired upon by Brown's men and 
one of them killed, they were obliged to return the compliment. 

Mr. Brown insisted that the marines fired first. t 

" An Officer. — Why did not you surrender before the attack? 

Mr. Brown. — I did not think it was my duty or interest to do 
so. We assured the prisoners that we did not wish to harm them, 
and that they should be set at liberty. I exercised my best judg- 
ment, not believing the people would wantonly sacrifice their own 
fellow-citizens, when we offered to let them go on condition of being 
allowed to change our position about a quarter of a mile. The pris- 
oners agreed by vote among themselves to pass across the bridge 
with us. We wanted them only as a sort of guaranty of our own 
safety; that we should not be fired into. We took them in the first 
place as hostages and to keep them from doing any harm. We did 
kill some men in defending ourselves, but I saw no one fire except 
directly in self-defence. Our orders were strict not to harm any one 
not in arms against us. 

Q. — Brown, suppose you had every nigger in the United States, 
what would you do with them? 

A. — Set them free. 

Q. — Your intention was to carry them off and free them? 

A. — Not at all. 

A Bystander. — To set them free would sacrifice the life of every 
man in this community. 

* This portion of the interview is evidently erroneous. John Brown could 
hardly have maintained that he was struck down after surrendering, in view of the 
shooting of the two marines who entered the engine house after Lieutenant Green ; 
moreover, in his testimony during his trial he twice stated that he never asked for 
quarter. It is true, however, that as the marines came in, two of the raiders, 
Thompson and Anderson, surrendered and there were shouts of: "One man sur- 
renders." If John Brown had meant to surrender, the time to do so was when 
Lieutenant Stuart asked him to; not two minutes thereafter, when the marines 
came in under fire. 

t This is evidently a confusion of Lieutenants Stuart and Green and Major 
Russell. 
, t This statement is erroneous; the marines fired no shots whatever. 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 463 

Mr. Brown. — I do not think so. 

Bystander. — I know it. I think you are fanatical. 

Mr. Brown. — And I think you are fanatical. "Whom the gods 
would destroy they first make mad," and you are mad. 

Q. — Was it your only object to free the negroes? 

A. — Absolutely our only object. 

Q. — But you demanded and took Colonel Washington's silver 
and watch? 

A. — Yes; we intended freely to appropriate the property of 
slaveholders to carry out our object. It was for that, and only that, 
and with no design to enrich ourselves with any plunder whatever. 

According to a later report in the Herald, Governor Wise, on 
his return to Richmond, said somebody in the crowd applied 
to Brown the epithet "robber," and that Brown retorted, 
"You [alluding to the slaveholders] are the robbers." And 
it was in this connection that he said, " If you have your opin- 
ions about me, I have my opinions about you." At this time 
the Governor remarked to him, "Mr. Brown, the silver of 
your hair is reddened by the blood of crime, and it is meet 
that you should eschew these hard allusions and think upon 
eternity. ..." 

Brown replied by saying: 

"Governor, I have, from all appearances, not more than fifteen or 
twenty years the start of you in the journey to that eternity of which 
you kindly warn me; and whether my tenure here shall be fifteen 
months, or fifteen days, or fifteen hours, I am equally prepared to go. 
There is an eternity behind and an eternity before, and the little 
speck in the centre, however long, is but comparatively a minute. 
The difference between your tenure and mine is trifling and I want 
to therefore tell you to be prepared; I am prepared. You all [refer- 
ring to slaveholders] have a heavy responsibility, and it behooves 
you to prepare more than it does me." ^^ 

There was a passage in Governor Wise's speech on his 
arrival in Richmond which gave great offence to the military, 
for it voiced freely and frankly his own bitterness of spirit 
that it was left to United States marines to capture nineteen 
raiders upon Virginia soil. In it, he spoke thus: 

"On Monday night the gallant and noble Virginia Colonel, Robert 
Lee, worthy of any service on earth, arrived with his regular corps 
of marines. He waited only for light. Then tendered the assault, 
in State pride, to the Virginia volunteers who were there. Their 



464 JOHN BROWN 

feelings for the prisoners made them decHne the risk of slaying their 
own friends, and Lee could not delay a moment to retake the arsenal, 
punish the impudent invaders and release the prisoners at the neces- 
sary risk of their own lives. His gallantry was mortified that the 
task was so easy. . . . With mortification and chagrin inexpres- 
sible, he picked twelve marines and took the engine-house in ten 
minutes, with the loss of one marine killed and one wounded, with- 
out hurting a hair of one of the prisoners. And now I say to you that 
I would have given my right arm to its shoulder for that feat to have 
been performed by the volunteers of Virginia on Monday before the 
marines arrived there. But there was no cowardice or panic on the 
part of the inhabitants who were made prisoners, or on the part of 
the volunteers who first reached the scene. ..." 

The matter did not end here. Governor Wise's son, O. Jen- 
nings Wise, who gave his life for the Confederacy two years 
later, after a brief career of undoubted bravery, preferred 
charges against Colonel Robert W. Baylor, the colonel of 
militia cavalry who had assumed command of all the State 
forces on the afternoon of Monday. At Colonel Baylor's 
request, a court of inquiry was held in June, i860, but It failed 
to touch upon the real point at issue, — Colonel Baylor's 
behavior on October 17, 1859.^2 Fearing that this would be 
the case, Jennings Wise, on Its assembling, wrote to the court, 
which apparently Ignored his letter, that Colonel Baylor 
Illegally assumed command "contrary to his grade and the 
nature of his commission," acted without orders, was guilty 
of cowardice In not storming the engine house, and of "un- 
officerlike conduct" In assigning a "false, cowardly and 
Insulting reason for not leading the attack on the engine 
house when the service was offered to him by Colonel Lee : to- 
wlt . . . that It was a duty which belonged to the mercenaries 
of the regular service — meaning the marines — who were 
paid for It;" and finally for using "violent and ungentlemanly 
language about his commander-in-chief [Governor Wlse]."^^ 

A member of the Shepherdstown militia, the Hamtramck 
Guards, charged In the local newspaper that his company was 
permitted to stand Idle In the streets from the time of the 
Martlnsburg company's attack, w^hen one platoon fired a few 
rounds at the engine-house, until late In the evening, because 
of the captain's Inability to obtain orders from Colonel 
Baylor.^^ The only commands given during the evening, he 



HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 465 

related, "were from a set of drunken fellows whooping and 
bellowing like a pack of maddened bulls, evidently too drunk, 
many of them, to hold their guns." He also charged that the 
wounded of the Martinsburg company were shot not by the 
raiders but by their own men. There is intrinsic evidence of 
the accuracy of much of this letter; it is certainly true that, 
wherever the fault lay, no effective use whatever was made 
of the Hamtramck Guards after their one attack upon the 
engine house. From the adjoining houses they could have 
poured in a deadly fire. 

The truth seems to be that, as might have been expected 
with a practically paper militia, the hastily called-out Vir- 
ginia soldiery were quite unequal to the task set, by reason of 
the utter inability of their officers to control and direct them 
and to keep them sober. Throughout the entire conflict, there 
were but two really aggressive movements, — the taking of the 
bridge by the Jefferson Guards, and the charge of the Martins- 
burg company. Had Colonel Baylor been capable of aggres- 
sive leadership, the discredit to the Virginia arms would never 
have taken place. But there was no concerted action, and but 
little intelligent direction, at any time of the day, after the 
taking of the bridge. On the other hand, the militia compa- 
nies, like those so hastily organized, were inadequately armed 
and equipped, and the presence of the prisoners with the 
enemy was a happy excuse to cover the delays and hesita- 
tions of the afternoon. For this, the commanding officer, 
Colonel Baylor, must naturally be held responsible. It was the 
old story, so soon to be repeated on many battlefields, of 
excellent military material ineffective through lack of disci- 
pline and vigorous leadership. 

For all of Governor Wise's admiration of John Brown as 
a man, he did not hesitate to describe him and his men 
as "murderers, traitors, robbers, insurrectionists," and "wan- 
ton, malicious, unprovoked felons." " Yet just a year and a 
half later, April 16, 1861, Henry A. Wise, then out of office 
and with no more legal authority for his acts than had John 
Brown, actively conspired with Captain — later General 
— J. D. Imboden, General Kenton Harper and the superin- 
tendent, Alfred W. Barbour, and through them captured the 
Harper's Ferry arsenal precisely as had John Brown, save 



466 JOHN BROWN 

that there was no loss of Hfe." But the blow was none the less 
directly aimed at the Federal Government. The undertaking 
of this act of treason was a compelling reason for the passage 
of the Virginia Ordinance of Secession on April 17, 1861. 
Governor Wise dramatically announced to the Secession con- 
vention that "armed forces are now moving upon Harper's 
Ferry to capture the arms there in the Arsenal for the public 
defence, and there will be a fight or a foot-race between vol- 
unteers of Virginia and Federal troops before the sun sets this 
day." " On June i, this same Henry A. Wise, whose abhor- 
rence of John Brown's acts had been so profound, in a speech 
at Richmond urged his neighbors to: "Get a spear — a lance. 
Take a lesson from John Brown, manufacture your blades 
from old iron, even though it be the tires of your cart-wheels." ^* 
Forgetful, too, of his panegyric of his Yankee captive's brav- 
ery and coolness, he assured his auditors that: "Your true- 
blooded Yankee will never stand still in the presence of cold 
steel." In so scant a space of time as a year and a half had the 
erstwhile Governor, by a singular revolution of the wheel of 
fate, himself come to occupy the position of a rebel against 
the established political order. 



CHAPTER XIII 
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 

With the capture of John Brown an accomplished fact, the 
mihtary were free to take account of what had happened, and 
to endeavor to ascertain precisely what this attack upon the 
peaceful town meant. ^ In the morning, a Maryland militia 
company, the Baltimore Greys, under command of Lieut.- 
Col. S. S. Mills, of the Fifty-third Maryland Regiment, visited 
the school-house, took the arms there deposited, and acquired 
some of John Brown's papers, many of which were later 
regained in Baltimore, after considerable trouble.^ Lieutenant 
Stuart and a detachment of the marines were then sent, early 
in the afternoon, to the Kennedy Farm, to bring back to the 
arsenal the property of the raiders. They did not, however, 
arrive until John Brown's dwelling, so recently the home of 
high hopes and philanthropic ambitions, had been ransacked 
by curious neighbors. It was characteristic of John Brown that 
he had left at the Farm, undestroyed, all his correspondence 
bearing on his preparations and his plans, and that belonging 
to his men as well.* Had he succeeded, therefore, in gaining 
the hills and beginning his guerrilla raids, his enemy would 
have been in full possession of his purposes and of the names 
of his confederates in the North. The Baltimore troops found 
Colonel Washington's wagon and its scattered horses, with 
which some of the weapons were taken to the armory. Lieu- 
tenant Stuart found at the Farm most of the pikes, which were 
speedily distributed as souvenirs, and for months thereafter 
were hawked about with so ready a sale as to lead to the 
manufacture of spurious ones.^ Every one who aided in mov- 

* Hugh Forbes wrote to the editor of the Herald on October 7, 1859: "When I 
transmitted to Capt. Brown copies of all my correspondence with his friends, I 
never dreamed that the most terrible engine of destruction which he would carry 
with him in his campaign would be a carpet-bag loaded with 400 letters, to be 
turned against his friends, of whom the journals assert that more than forty-seven 
are already compromised." 



468 JOHN BROWN 

ing the rifles and revolvers likewise helped himself to some as 
legitimate spoils of war. 

Of Cook, the only one of the escaped raiders of whose exist- 
ence the victors at first knew, there was naturally no sign. 
He, with Owen Brown, Tidd, Meriam and Barclay Coppoc, 
had spent the night of Monday in the bushes near the cabin 
of the Kennedy Farm. Here they lay until early morning, 
when the last one of the negroes whom they had armed and 
freed, deserted them and set them at three o'clock to climbing 
the mountain as fast as their load of arms and other impedi- 
menta permitted.'* This negro's conduct was characteristic of 
all of the slaves impressed by John Brown. They followed the 
orders of the raiders and obeyed them to the extent of carry- 
ing, for a time, arms or pikes, and doing guard-duty. When, 
however, it came to firing in the engine house, or to accom- 
panying those who had escaped, they refused in the one case 
to attack the slaveholders, and in the other they chose to slip 
away and return to their masters with tales of being kept 
against their will, rather than to risk their lives or make any 
effort to escape. 5 The great uprising among the blacks upon 
which John Brown counted so confidently never came to pass; 
the thousands of reinforcements he looked for appeared not 
at all. There was not one who joined of his own accord; of 
those that did go with Brown, a negro hired by Colonel Wash- 
ington from a neighbor was found drowned in the river, where 
some thought he was driven by citizens in an attempt to run 
away, while others held that he was shot by Cook.^ No satis- 
factory explanation of his death was ever given. M r. Allstad t's 
negro, Phil, who at Brown's orders had broken loopholes in 
the engine-house walls for the raiders to fire through, was taken 
to the jail at Charlestown, where he died of pneumonia, com- 
plicated by very great fear.'' Otherwise, the negro population 
was unaffected by the raid, and its imperturbability, when 
once established, went far toward reassuring the South. 

Outraged as they were by the attack on their homes, the 
Harper's Ferrians and the whole South breathed again when 
they realized that the negroes themselves had not risen in the 
excitement Brown created. "And this is the only consolation 
I have to offer you in this disgrace," said Governor Wise in his 
Richmond speech, "that the faithful slaves refused to take up 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 469 

arms against their masters ; and those who were taken by force 
from their happy homes deserted their liberators as soon as 
they could dare to make the attempt. Not a slave around was 
found faithless." Senator Mason likewise rejoiced at this. 
"On the part of the negroes," he stated in a signed resume 
of his own investigation of the raid issued to the press im- 
mediately thereafter,^ "it is certain that the only emotion 
evinced by them was of alarm and terror, and their only refuge 
sought at their masters' homes." The negro who deserted 
Cook's party, in the early morning hours of Tuesday, w^ent 
down to the Ferry and informed the authorities that Cook 
was there in the mountain,^ just as Cook's party had fore- 
seen that he would. A vigorous, organized pursuit would 
doubtless have run Cook to earth at once; but they being 
ignorant of how many of the raiders were at large, nothing 
was done by either the Maryland or Virginia military. 

The scenes of Tuesday evening at Harper's Ferry were for- 
tunately recorded by an able Northern witness, Joseph G. 
Rosengarten, a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad," who 
strayed by accident into Harper's Ferry during the riot, and, 
being near Captain Turner when he was killed, was promptly 
marched off to spend the night in the Charlestown jail as a 
suspect. Being released the next day through the interces- 
sion of Governor Wise, he returned to Harper's Ferry in time 
to see the immediate aftermath of the raid. Of it he records: 

" Night soon came, and it was made hideous by the drunken noise 
and turmoil of the crowd in the village ; matters were made worse, 
too, by the Governor's orders to impress all the horses; and the 
decent, sober men trudged home rather out of humor with their 
patriotic sacrifice; while the tipsy and pot-valiant militia fought and 
squabbled with each other, and only ceased that sport to pursue 
and hunt down some fugitive negroes and one or two half-maddened 
drunken fellows who, in their frenzy proclaimed themselves John 
Brown's men. Tired out at last, the Governor took refuge in the 
Wager House; — for an hour or two, he had stood on the porch 
haranguing an impatient crowd as 'Sons of Virginia!' Within doors 
the scene was stranger still. Huddled together . . . the Governor 
and his staff at a table with tallow candles guttering in the darkness, 
the Richmond Grays lying around the floor in picturesque and 
(then) novel pursuit of soft planks, a motley audience was gathered 
together to hear the papers captured at John Brown's house — the 
Kennedy Farm on Maryland Heights — read out with the Gov- 



470 JOHN BROWN 

ernor's running comments. The purpose of all this was plain enough. 
It was meant to serve as proof of a knowledge and instigation of the 
raid by prominent persons and party-leaders in the North, The 
most innocent notes and letters, commonplace newspaper para- 
graphs and printed cuttings, were distorted and twisted by the 
reading and by the talking into clear instructions and positive 
plots." 

Wednesday morning there took place the transfer of the 
prisoners by train to Charles town. They were well guarded by 
Lieutenant Israel Green and some of his men, and were in the 
joint charge of the sherifT of Jefferson County and the United 
States marshal of the Western District of Virginia. Governor 
Wise, Senator Mason and other prominent men accompanied 
them.i^ 'Phe removal to the train occurred under circum- 
stances which thoroughly warranted the using of the marines 
as a guard. Instead of a local militia company. Stevens and 
Brown had to be taken to the station in a wagon; Shields 
Green and Coppoc walked between files of soldiers and were 
followed by hundreds of highly excited men. As the proces- 
sion reached the train, the mob gathered menacingly, cry- 
ing, "Lynch them! Lynch them!" Governor Wise called out, 
"Oh, It w^ould be cowardly to do so now!" The crowd then 
fell back, and the prisoners were safely placed on the train. ^^ 
Most of the mllltia had already returned to their homes, and 
with but one company on duty after the departure of the 
prisoners, ^^ the town rapidly quieted down, and Colonel Lee 
felt free to move about as he pleased. 

When, therefore, news came at nine o'clock that evening 
from the village of Pleasant Valley, Maryland, that a body of 
men at sunset had descended from the mountains, attacked 
the house of a settler and massacred him, his wife and chil- 
dren, Lee, accompanied by Lieutenants Green and Stuart, 
hastened with twenty-five marines to the outraged hamlet, 
four or five miles away, only to find everything quiet and the 
massacred family sound asleep. ^^ He returned with his party 
in plenty of time to embark with all the marines shortly after 
midnight upon the train for Washington. Here Colonel Lee 
handed In a written report to the Secretary of War, in Igno- 
rance, however, of the fact that just twenty-four hours before 
his visit there, five escaping raiders had descended from the 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 471 

mountains into Pleasant Valley, and had heard cries of alarm 
which made them wrongfully believe that they were discov- 
~€red. After incredible hardships, all but Cook of this party 
of five safely reached the North. ^^ Of the other raiders who 
got away from Harper's Ferry, Hazlett was taken and Ander- 
son escaped. Had Cook and Hazlett not exposed themselves 
because of hunger, they, too, would have reached safety. Tidd 
reported afterward in person to Thomas Wentworth Hig- 
ginson, that his experiences while escaping had convinced 
him that "twenty-five men in the mountains of Virginia 
could paralyze the whole business of the South, and nobody 
could take them." It was the best guerrilla country in the 
world, in his opinion, — all crags and laurel-bushes. There 
was no attempt, he pointed out, to pursue him and his com- 
rades in the mountains; the man-hunters invariably kept to 
the roads. Their inability to travel directly made the fugi- 
tives cover one hundred and twenty miles in going to Cham- 
bersburg, only forty-five miles away as the bird flies, and they 
were gravely handicapped by Meriam's weakness and ina- 
bility to go more than a mile or so without resting. 

When John Brown was lodged in the Charlestown jail, 
he had every reason for thanksgiving that his life had been 
spared. Not that he was under any illusion as to the precari- 
ousness of his position ; he realized perfectly that the sands of 
time had nearly run out for him, and that his captors were 
certain to make every effort to take his life by due process 
of law. He was quick to perceive, as were his friends in the 
North, what rare good fortune it had been that Lieutenant 
Green's blade was so ineffective, for, had John Brown fallen in 
the engine house, the whole raid must needs have been a few 
days' wonder and then have been forgotten. Deprived of their 
leader, the fate of Stevens, Shields Green and Edwin Coppoc 
could only have mildl}^ interested the country. Unknown 
marauders, they must have perished with but few voices of 
sympathy raised in their behalf. Thanks to the chief's sur- 
vival, and to the discovery of his friendship with prominent 
Abolitionists and Republicans in high political positions, the 
Harper's Ferry emeiite assumed at once national proportions. 
The Democratic pro-slavery press of the North lost no time 
in seizing upon the raid to discredit the " Black Republicans" 



472 JOHN BROWN 

of all degrees. In their columns, John Brown's deeds were, if 
anything, magnified, in order to let the country understand 
just how culpable were Senator Seward, Congressman Gid- 
dings, Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith and many others. The 
New York Herald was particularly violent in its attacks on 
Smith and Seward; the latter was the "arch agitator who 
is responsible for this insurrection," whom it wished to see 
hanged in place of Brown. ^^ Him it characterized as one " ren- 
dered daring, reckless and an abolition monomaniac by the 
scenes of violence and blood through which he had passed." 
''He has met," the Herald declared, ''with the fate which he 
courted ; but his death and the punishment of all his criminal 
associates will be as a feather in the balance against the mis- 
chievous consequences which will probably follow from the 
rekindling of the slavery excitement in the South." ^^ 

The Republican press was at first inclined to discredit the 
whole episode, or to dismiss it as the work of a madman. In 
this the Tribune took the lead, saying on Tuesday that the 
extraordinary happening in Harper's Ferry was attributed 
to negroes and Abolitionists. "But, as negroes are not abun- 
dant in that part of Virginia, while no Abolitionists were 
ever known to peep in that quarter, we believe the nature of 
the affair must be grossly misapprehended." The next day it 
spoke of the raid thus : ' ' The whole affair seems the work of a 
madman, but John Brown has so often looked death serenely 
in the face that what seems madness to others doubtless wore 
a different aspect to him." The Cleveland Leader sought to 
minimize the whole affair in this wise: "But for the loss of life 
attending the foray of the crazy Brown among the Virginians, 
the whole thing would be positively ridiculous, and it is fast be- 
coming so even with the frightened chivalry themselves. The 
eccentric Governor Wise, as reported by telegraph, has so far 
recovered from his fright under the backing of Virginia, Mary- 
land and United States troops, that he has ventured to pitch 
into the Harper's Ferry cowards in rather sharper than his 
usual sarcastic style." ^^ The Hartford Eve?iing Press con- 
sidered Brown a poor, demented old man; the calamity, it 
believed, would never have occurred had there been no lawless 
and criminal invasion of Kansas. ^^ To the St. Louis Evening 
News the raid was the freak of madmen, ending in humiliating 



CxUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 473 

discomfiture."'' To the Topeka, Kansas, Tribune the foray 
seemed like "the wiki scheme of a bad man who, seeking for 
personal distinction (not fame) and, perhaps, plunder, was 
ready to endanger the lives of thousands, perhaps even the 
existence of the State; for, had he succeeded, had he dis- 
tributed the arms he possessed in the armory, what hand, 
what mind could have guided the wild mass his mind had 
crazed and his hand had clothed with the instruments of 
death?" 21 The Atchison City, Kansas, Freedom'' s Champion 
recognized that "this madman has met a tragic end at last. 
An insane effort to accomplish what none but a madman 
would attempt, has resulted as any one but a madman would 
have foreseen, in death, to all who were engaged in it." ^2 

The politically independent Liberator, mouthpiece of the 
most radical, but at the same time the non-resistant wing of 
the Abolitionists, who were ever counselling the negroes not 
to rise in revolt or to use force to right their wrongs, thus 
commented on the first news from Harper's Ferry: 

"The particulars of a misguided, wild, and apparently insane, 
though disinterested and well intended effort by insurrection to 
emancipate the slaves in Virginia, under the leadership of Capt. John, 
alias 'Ottawatomie' Brown, may be found on our third page. Our 
views of war and bloodshed, even in the best of causes, are too well 
known to need repeating here; but let no one who glories in the 
revolutionary struggle of 1776, deny the right of the slaves to imi- 
tate the example of our fathers.""^ 

In its next issue it described the comments of the lead- 
ing Democratic and Republican newspapers as characterized 
"by an equal mixture of ferocity and cowardice." Gradually, 
however, the Republican press came to see in the affray just 
retribution for the South's policy of violence in Kansas, and a 
perfectly inevitable protest against the wickedness of slavery. 
The opportunity to make a martyr of John Brown, to let him 
typify the protest of increasing hundreds of thousands against 
human bondage, they soon made use of to the fullest extent. 
John Brown's own attitude, his nobility of spirit and readi- 
ness for his sacrifice, were of enormous aid. The political 
opportunity his martyrdom offered was not neglected. "Al- 
ready the Black Republican press has commenced to apolo- 



474 JOHN BROWN 

gize for him," said the Portage, Ohio, Weekly Sentinel of Octo- 
ber 26. 

"They say that exasperated by wrongs done him in Kansas he 
was driven to madness. They say he reasoned thus, 'that the slave 
drivers tried to put down Freedom in Kansas by force of arms and 
he would try to put down Slavery in Virginia by the same means.' 
Thus is the 'irrepressible conflict' of Seward and Smith and Gid- 
dings, and the Black Republican party, carried out practically by a 
bold, bad, desperate man. Who is responsible for this? Not Brown, 
for he is mad ; but they, who by their countenance and pecuniary 
aid have induced him thus to resort to arms to carry out their 
poHtical schemes, must answer to the country and the world for this 
fearfully significant outbreak." 

The New York Abend-Zeitung declared that: 

"Brown and his companions made themselves martyrs OF A 
CAUSE IN ITSELF noble ; and, although the mode in which they sought 
to advance it was not adapted to the end proposed, we still cannot 
refuse our respect for the self-sacrificing zeal with which they of- 
fered up their lives for it. We have no reproof to offer Brown, 
EXCEPT this, that the way in which he set to work hindered rather 
than forwarded his plans." ^^ 

The South itself was compelled to admiration by Brown's 
manly bearing under fire and in adversity, as had been Gov- 
ernor Wise and the other eye-witnesses at Harper's Ferry.* 
Its leaders had, heretofore, been on the offensive; theirs was 
the successful war with Mexico ; theirs the Fugitive Slave Law, 
the attempt to conquer Kansas; theirs the control of the Fed- 
eral Government, which they bent to their will. Here now was 
the North deliberately invading their soil and assailing their 
sacred institution, and though it filled them with horror and 
anger, at least they had to admit that besides its daring, its 
reckless folly, the raid did not lack a certain consistency. No 
longer could they taunt the Abolition North with lacking the 
courage of its opinions ; no longer could they say that the New 
England lover of the negro was too fond of his skin to risk it 
in the South. Itwasacry of anxious rage that went up. Would 

* Describing John Brown's appearance as he lay wounded before him, Gov- 
ernor Wise once said that he likened his attitude to nothing but "a broken- winged 
hawk lying upon his back, with fearless eye, and talons set for further fight if 
need be." — John S. Wise, The End oj an Era, p. 132. 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 475 

the very news of the raid put the word "insurrection " into the 
minds of the millions held in bondage from Harper's Ferry 
to the Gulf? How many imitators of John Brown would 
appear, to seek revenge for his failure? Then, as the South 
discovered the North's readiness to lionize, even in some 
quarters to deify Brown, its anger increased. To them he was 
a fanatic who sought not only to steal cherished property, but 
to establish anarchy, to reenact the Nat Turner horrors, to 
make the terrible scenes of the Haytian negro revolt insignifi- 
cant beside the atrocities he would set on foot.* That such 
a man could be likened to the Saviour, and be considered a 
direct instrument of the Almighty, was maddening far beyond 
the actual outrage. The killing of Beckham and other unof- 
fending citizens was surely murder, plain and simple. To ap- 
plaud it, to describe it as an act especially pleasing to the 
Deity, was to argue one's self morally defective, of a criminal 
spirit, and so bitterly hostile to the injured and innocent 
people of the South as to make more than one person come 
to John Brown's views that the issue between the two sections 
had passed beyond the possibility of peaceable settlement. 
Mr. William Hand Browne has recently well characterized 
the Southern attitude in the following passage : 

"But the atrocious attempt of John Brown at Harper's Ferry 
came like a fire bell in the night. The attempt itself might have 
been considered merely the deed of a few fanatical desperadoes, but 
for the universal uproar of enthusiastic approbation that burst out 
at the North. Doubtless there were many who abhorred the idea of 
midnight massacre; but their voices were drowned in what seemed 
to be a universal chorus of applause, mingled with regrets that the 
assassins had not succeeded in their purpose. The South could not 
be blamed for supposing that the North had passed from the stage 
of political antagonism to that of furious personal hate." ^^ t 

Said the Richmond Enquirer of October 25, 1859: 

* "Nothing," declared the London Times of November 2, 1859, "but sickening 
and bootless slaughter could come of it [the raid]. First the slaughter of white 
families by their slaves, and then the bloody revenge of the exasperated masters." 
It correctly observed, however, that "the state of society which causes such a 
scheme to be formed and carried out is not the less threatening." 

t "The conviction became common in the South that John Brown differed 
from the majority of Northerners merely in the boldness and desperation of his 
methods." — Frederic Bancroft, Life of William H. Seward, pp. 497-498. 



476 JOHN BROWN 

"The Harper's Ferry invasion has advanced the cause of Dis- 
union more than any other event that has happened since the for- 
mation of the Government; it has ralHed to that standard men 
who formerly looked upon it with horror; it has revived with tenfold 
strength the desires of a Southern Confederacy. The, heretofore, 
most determined friends of the Union may now be heard saying, 'if 
under the form of a Confederacy, our peace is disturbed, our State 
invaded, its peaceful citizens cruelly murdered, and all the horrors 
of servile war forced upon us, by those who should be our warmest 
friends; if the form of a Confederacy is observed, but the spirit vio- 
lated, and the people of the North sustain the outrage, then let disunion 
come.'" 

This same newspaper noted with satisfaction that what 
it called the conservative, that is, the pro-slavery press of 
the North, "evinces a determination to make the moral of 
the Harper's Ferry invasion an effective weapon to rally all 
men not fanatics against that party whose leaders have been 
implicated directly with the midnight murder of Virginia 
citizens and the destruction of government property." But 
the attempt to use the acts of extreme Abolitionists to make 
capital against them was an old political game. Southern 
politicians had long been indulging in it, yet the cause of the 
anti-slavery men had steadily progressed. In this case, too, 
the John Brown raid, though it appeared at first a severe 
injury to the Republicans, did them little harm. The Novem- 
ber elections were favorable to the new party, even though 
their vote fell off in certain places. Horace Greeley correctly 
foresaw that the ultimate effect of the raid would be bene- 
ficial. "It will drive the slave power to new outrages," he 
wrote. "It presses on the 'irrepressible conflict,' and I think 
the end of slavery in Virginia and the Union is ten years 
nearer than it seemed a few weeks ago."-" Indeed, the raid 
revealed to many besides John Brown that there was to be 
a bloody conflict on a far greater scale; and no student of 
this period can fail to be impressed by the prevision of com- 
ing events given to hundreds, if not thousands, on both sides. 
When the iron door of his cell had been slammed behind 
John Brown, the State authorities discovered that a trial 
speedy enough to satisfy the anger of Virginia was, by chance, 
a possibility. The Grand Jury was in session, and the semi- 
annual term of the Circuit Court, over which Judge Richard 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 477 

Parker, of Winchester, presided, had begun. The Virginia 
statutes then required that "when an indictment is found 
against a person for felony, in a court wherein he may be 
tried, the accused, if in custody, shall, unless good cause be 
shown for a continuance, be arraigned and tried in the same 
term." " Nothing, it was felt, could so quickly allay the ex- 
citement among the whites and blacks alike as to send these 
men to the gallows. If this law were not obeyed, and the 
case were continued, there could be no trial until the follow- 
ing April; during these six months the State would be in a 
ferment and some militia would have to be under arms. There 
arose, however, the question of jurisdiction. Should John 
Brown be turned over to the United States? Some of his of- 
fences had been committed on United States property, and 
the Federal courts could, therefore, take cognizance of them. 
Here was an opportunity to place the United States Govern- 
ment in the position of prosecutor of these Abolitionists, of 
which, it seems to-day, Governor Wise should have availed 
himself for strategic reasons. To embroil the Federal Gov- 
ernment might well have seemed most tempting to the slave- 
power. But Governor Wise and his associates, exceedingly 
shrewd politicians, finally decided otherwise. The Federal 
courts, it must be remembered, were not then as important as 
to-day ; the nearest Federal prison was at some distance, and 
Wise had no desire to have it said that the State of Virginia 
was forced to hide behind the skirts of the Federal Govern- 
ment, and to obtain its help to punish those who violated 
her soil and killed her citizens. ^^ 

None the less. Governor Wise vacillated for some time, 
particularly when it came to trying Brown's companions. 
Thus on November 7 he telegraphed to Andrew Hunter: 
"You had better try Cooke and turn Stephens [Stevens] over 
to the United States Court. Do that definitely." 29 His and 
Hunter's position at this time is explained by a letter of 
Hunter's, dated five days earlier: 

" I have seen your letter to Gov. Willard and am considering the 
suggestion as to transferring one of the prisoners to the Federal 
authorities. It strikes me very favorably but I have not yet con- 
ferred with the Judge, and as neither of the murders, that is, as to 
the death of the victims, except the Marine, occurred on the Govern- 



478 JOHN BROWN 

ment property, one must consider carefully how far the prisoner 
transferred can be certainly convicted in the Federal Court, par- 
ticularly Cooke, who is the only white prisoner we have left except 
Stephens. Our State Court, of course, has no power to summon 
Forbes from N. York , . . and this renders it the more important 
to send one of the scoundrels to Uncle Sam, in order to get at the 
greater villains implicated who are still out of our reach." ^° 

On November 7, Hunter announced in court, amid a great 
sensation, that Stevens would be given up to the United 
States; that Virginia was now after "higher and wickeder 
game." ^^ Yet in December the hunt for the greater prey was 
abandoned. When, on December 15, President Buchanan in- 
quired by telegraph whether Stevens had been turned over to 
the United States, Andrew Hunter replied: "Stephens has 
not been delivered to the authorities of the United States. 
Undetermined as yet whether he will be tried here." ^2 

On hearing of this query from the President, Governor 
Wise, on December 18, exactly reversed his position of six 
weeks earlier, in this message to Andrew Hunter:. 

"In reply to yours of the 15th I say definitively that Stephens 
ought not to be handed over to the Federal authorities for trial. 
... I hope you informed the President of the status of his case 
before the court. I am convinced that there is a political design in 
trying now to have him tried before the Federal courts. He will not 
be delivered up with my consent." ^^ 

We have no means of knowing what the political conspiracy 
was which Governor Wise then thought he scented. But the 
chief reason for the change of policy in regard to Stevens's 
trial was the appointment, on December 14, of a committee 
of investigation of the United States Senate, consisting of 
three pro-slavery Senators and two from the North, headed 
by Senator Mason, of Virginia. As this committee was avow- 
edly appointed to strike at the "higher and wickeder" vil- 
lains, the special reason for having one trial in a United States 
court — the examining of the Northern friends and backers 
of Brown, and of the Republican leaders — had disappeared." 
Hunter and Wise found it easy to show that Stevens had not 
actually been turned over to the Federal authorities, though 
his trial in November in Judge Parker's court had been in- 
terrupted for that express purpose. Against this unjust and 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 479 

hurtful vacillation with Stevens, his counsel argued and pro- 
tested in vain. 3^ He was tried and sentenced to death in 
Charles town. 

John Brown was put on trial for his life before Judge Rich- 
ard Parker,^'' in the court-house at Charlestown, on October 
25, one week after his capture. That so brief an interval only 
should have elapsed between crime and trial created an un- 
favorable impression in the North. In the excitement of the 
hour, high-minded men and women forgot that, through John 
Brown's agency, Beckham, Turner, Boerley and Hayward 
had been killed without warning; they complained that Vir- 
ginia was mercilessly and inhumanly rushing him to the gal- 
lows; that his being done to death was a foregone conclusion; 
and finally that Virginia had gone mad with fright. Fear 
there undoubtedly was at Charlestown and Richmond that 
this was but the beginning of extensive hostilities between 
North and South; the letters which now began to pour in on 
Governor Wise convinced him, as will be seen later, that there 
was a widespread conspiracy, of which the raid was only a 
part. To him it made no difference that John Brown's wounds 
were not yet healed, for they were at worst superficial. But 
that they were still unhealed, intensified the feeling of out- 
rage in the North. That John Brown heard his arraignment, 
lying on a cot at the bar, deeply stirred Northern newspaper- 
readers, as did the fact that Stevens had to be carried into 
court. Lydia Maria Child wrote to Governor Wise that she did 
not know of a single person who would have approved of the 
raid, if he had been apprised of John Brown's intention in ad- 
vance. "But," she added, "I and thousands of others feel a 
natural impulse of sympathy for the brave and suffering man. 
... He needs a mother and sister to dress his wounds, and 
speak soothingly to him. Will you allow me to perform that 
mission of humanity?"" To this Governor Wise responded 
that he knew of no reason why she should not minister to 
John Brown, for he would permit no woman to be insulted, 
even if she came to minister to "one who whetted knives of 
butchery for our mothers, sisters, daughters, and babes." ^** 

* "Do not allow Mrs. Child to visit B. He does not wish it because the infu- 
riated populace will have new suspicions aroused & great excitement and inju- 
rious results are certain. He is comfortable. Has all his wants supplied kindly, 



48o JOHN BROWN 

The Lawrence, Kansas, Republican voiced the sentiments 
of many Northerners in saying: 

"We defy an instance to be shown in a civiHzed community where 
a prisoner has been forced to trial for his Hfe, when so disabled by 
sickness or ghastly wounds as to be unable even to sit up during the 
proceedings, and compelled to be carried to the judgment hall upon 
a litter. . . . Such a proceeding shames the name of justice, and 
only finds a congenial place amid the records of the bloody Inquisi- 
tion." 

It was no answer to this, the Republican thought, to say 
that the Virginia public was too wrought up to admit of 
delay. That there was intense popular excitement was the 
best of reasons why delay should have been granted, that the 
trial might proceed with due calm and dehberation. "And 
what a comment upon the state of society engendered by 
slavery is it that the peace and safety of a community of 
twenty thousand population is endangered by the prisoned, 
bolted and barred presence of a sick and wounded old man." ^^ 

Even the New York Herald had to admit the obvious signs 
of haste in dooming the prisoners. Horace Greeley, in the 
Tribune, at first wrote on October 25 : 

"As the Grand Jury of Jefferson County . . . is already in session, 
the trial of Brown and his confederates may be expected to take 
place at once, unless delay should be granted to prepare for trial, or a 
change of venue to some less excited county should be asked for. 
Neither of these is probable. The prisoners in fact have no defence, 
and their case will probably be speedily disposed of. We trust the 
whole proceeding may partake of the same spirit of decency, pro- 
priety, and respect for the law, and the rights of the prisoners, 
which characterizes the charge given by the presiding Judge to the 
Grand Jury." 

Later, however, the Tribune felt that the trial was unfair 
because, among other reasons. Brown was not allowed the 
time and opportunity to make a full and complete defence 

and is not sick enough to be nursed. He donH want women there to unman his 
heroic determination to maintain a firm and consistent composure. Keep Mrs. 
Child away at all hazards. Brown and associates will certainly be lynched if she 
goes there. This ought to be shown to Mr. Andrew and others, but no public 
exhibition.'' — Thus wrote George H. Hoyt, John Brown's lawyer, to J. W. Le 
Barnes. (Original in the Kansas Historical Society Collections.) Mrs. Child did 
not go to Virginia. 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 481 

to the multifarious charges brought against him.^o The Bos- 
ton Transcript went so far as to say: "Whatever may be his 
guilt or folly, a man convicted under such circumstances, and, 
especially, a man executed after such a trial, will be the most 
terrible fruit that slavery has ever borne, and will excite 
the execration of the whole civilized world." ^^ To an ob- 
server of the protracted criminal trials in this country to-day, 
it seems odd that any one should have objected to a prompt 
trial for Brown. But public sentiment was far too aroused on 
both sides to permit of calm judgments. The spectacle of the 
gray-haired prisoner sentenced while lying on his couch, when 
combined with the belief that the trial was an unfair one by 
reason of haste, made John Brown a martyr in the eyes of the 
North. 

Tactically, from the point of view of slavery, it would seem 
that Governor Wise erred in not suggesting a delay, unless 
it be believed that he, who had bombastically threatened 
secession in 1854 in the event of the election of an Aboli- 
tionist President, *2 ^as as anxious to see John Brown's acts 
embroil the States as he was ready to utilize Brown's impris- 
onment as an excuse for training the militia of Virginia for 
the impending conflict. In 1888, nearly thirty years after the 
raid, when the heat of the hour had long since passed away, 
Judge Parker reviewed the trial of his most distinguished 
criminal in these words: 

" Frequent misrepresentations have been made respecting it. For 
example, it has been said that the trial was indecently conducted, 
and so hurried through as virtually to deny to the accused an op- 
portunity to make his defense. I submit, with all deference, that 
censures of this character can only have proceeded from ignorance 
of what really transpired on that occasion. It is my principle — I 
may say my only purpose in this paper, to show how groundless 
were all such charges, and to set forth, in a plain narrative, the spirit 
and temper in which the trial was conducted; that there was no 
denial to the accused of any presumption, benefit or right to which 
he was entitled ; that no bias against him was exhibited by the jury 
or the Court; that he was defended by learned and zealous counsel, 
who, without let or interruption, were granted all the time they were 
pleased to consume in the examination of witnesses, in discussing 
the various questions of law and fact, which arose during the trial, 
in excepting to every opinion of the Court wherein they supposed 
there might be an error, and in arguing before the Jury every matter 



482 JOHN BROWN 

which they deemed important or beneficial to the defense; in a 
word, to show that John Brown had a fair and impartial trial, just 
such as should be granted to all persons so unfortunate as to be 
accused of crime." " 

Judge Parker's own bearing throughout the trial, and his 
eminently judicial spirit, have never been questioned. He 
was bravely ready at all times to take his stand without 
regard to the violent feelings of his neighbors, and his word 
as to the trial is, as a whole, to be accepted. It is to be regret- 
ted, however, that he did not give the additional time to 
Brown's counsel for which the prisoner pleaded; had he done 
so, it must have mitigated many of the Northern criticisms 
of the procedure. 

These were not all from irresponsible sources. So good a 
lawyer, so just and public-spirited a man as John A. Andrew, 
for instance, felt indignant at what seemed to him the undue 
haste of the trial. He testified before the Senate inquiry into 
the raid that, 

"such speed and hurried action ... as to render it probable 
that there was to be no sufificient opportunity to make a full and 
complete defense . . . struck my mind, and the minds of various 
other gentlemen whom I met with . . . as being a judicial outrage. 
... It was wholly unlike anything I had ever known or heard 
in my practice as a lawyer. When some persons had been indicted 
for kidnapping, in Massachusetts, last September, the court gave 
Gen. Gushing, their counsel, two or three months after their arraign- 
ment before he was required even to file a plea." ** 

But Mr. Andrew was probably ignorant of the Virginia stat- 
ute governing the case, already quoted. After this lapse of 
time it is plain that the authorities had ample justification 
in this statute, and in the popular excitement, in expediting 
the trial ; that the outcome of a deferred trial would have been 
the same is also obvious. It certainly cannot be successfully 
maintained that substantial injustice was done to John 
Brown by the celerity of his conviction. When all was said 
and done, and the trial finished, John Brown expressed his 
opinion in the following words: "I feel entirely satisfied with 
the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all 
the circumstances, it has been more generous than I ex- 
pected." *^ It remains to add the testimony of Daniel W. Voor- 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 483 

hees, the great Indiana lawyer and orator, who later became 
United States Senator from that State. Mr. Voorhees was 
present at John Brown's trial, having been summoned by 
Governor Willard, Cook's brother-in-law, to defend his rela- 
tive. Of the court procedure he had, in later years, this to 
say: 

" If justly represented by the pen of the historian, it will pass into 
history as the most temperate and conservative judicial tribunal 
convened, when all the surrounding circumstances are considered. 
With perfect calmness, forbearing patience and undisturbed ad- 
herence to the law, as known and decided throughout generations, 
that court arises upon my mind with increased and increasing 
claims to the respect and veneration of the American people and 
of the world. Nothing was yielded to outside excitement or popu- 
lar frenzy." ^^ 

The question of counsel for John Brown early presented 
itself. There being no Northern lawyers on hand, in accord- 
ance with universal custom, Charles B. Harding, attorney 
for the State, asked at the first examination that the Magis- 
trates' court assign counsel for the prisoners."' Charles J. 
Faulkner and Lawson Botts were designated. Mr. Faulkner 
asked to be relieved, because he resented the criticisms by 
the prisoner of his and Mr. Botts's appointment. Having 
helped to end the raid by force, he had, moreover, freely .ex- 
pressed his opinion of the raiders and their deserts, besides 
which, he had important professional engagements elsewhere. 
Mr. Faulkner's serving through the preliminary examination 
was insisted on; after that he withdrew, to bear public wit- 
ness in the next month that he had never in the course of his 
professional career "witnessed an examination which was 
entered upon and conducted with more deliberation and de- 
corum and with a more sacred regard to all the requirements, 
which the humane system of our criminal laws throws around 
the life and liberty of the accused, than was extended to those 
wicked disturbers of our peace." "^ 

Mr. Botts felt it his duty to carry on the case, and Thomas 
C. Green, mayor of Charlestown, was appointed by the court 
to take Mr. Faulkner's place. Both of these counsel were 
able lawyers of standing, Mr. Botts being thirty-six years old 
and Mr. Green in his thirty-ninth year. The latter was after- 



484 JOHN BROWN 

wards for fourteen years a distinguished judge of the West 
Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, while Mr. Botts gave his 
life for the Confederacy at the second Bull Run. There can be 
no doubt that in Messrs. Green and Botts/^ John Brown had 
assigned to him far abler counsel than would have been given 
to the ordinary malefactor. 

His friends in the North had not forgotten him, however. 
On the day the news of the raid was received, John W. Le 
Barnes, of Boston, engaged, at his own expense, a young law- 
yer of Athol, Massachusetts, George H. Hoyt, and asked him 
to go to Harper's Ferry ostensibly as counsel to John Brown, 
but really as a spy, to see if it would be possible to rescue the 
prisoners. Mr. Hoyt's instructions were, 

"first, to watch and be able to report proceedings, to see and talk 
with Brown, and be able to communicate with his friends anything 
Brown might want to say; and second, to send me [Le Barnes] an 
accurate and detailed account of the military situation at Charles- 
town, the number and distribution of troops, the location and 
defences of the jail, and nature of the approaches to the town 
and jail, the opportunities for a sudden attack, and the means of 
retreat, with the location and situation of the room in which Brown 
is confined, and all other particulars that might enable friends to 
consult as to some plan of attempt at rescue." 

Le Barnes chose Hoyt because, although twenty-one years 
of age, he looked not over nineteen, and was physically of 
fragile appearance. His very youth and evident lack of worldly 
experience would, Le Barnes thought, make it impossible 
for any one to suspect him of ulterior motives. If he appeared 
at Charlestown. Dr. Samuel G. Howe, when consulted by 
both men, doubted the wisdom of the scheme; but Le Barnes 
persisting and giving him seventy-five dollars, Hoyt set 
forth, ^° little dreaming that upon his frail shoulders would 
shortly rest the burden of the whole defence of John Brown. 
His inexperience told against him In Charlestown. He had 
not been there an hour before his very youth had aroused 
the suspicions of Andrew Hunter, the special prosecutor of 
the State of Virginia. Knowing full well that Massachusetts 
had no need to rely on callow striplings when skilled legal 
talent was In order, he shrewdly inferred that something else 
was In the wind, and, but for Judge Parker's magnanimity. 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 485 

would have excluded Hoyt from participation in Brown's 
trial as incompetent to practise in the courts of Virginia.^ "A 
beardless boy came in last night as Brown's counsel," re- 
ported Hunter to Governor Wise on October 28. " I think he 
is a spy. There are divers other strangers here. . . . They 
are watched closely." " But the watch set upon the "beard- 
less boy" was not close enough to prevent his communicating 
freely with the client to whom he had so unexpectedly at- 
tached himself, and he wasted no time in acquainting Brown 
with the real purpose of his unannounced arrival.^- 

Brown's legal advisers were called upon to joust with two 
prosecutors for the State. One of these was the regular com- 
monwealth's attorney, Charles Harding, whose notorious 
dissipation made it impossible for the State really to entrust 
to him the prosecution of so important a case. Usually in- 
toxicated, he knew but little of what was going on behind 
the scenes. Governor Wise giving his directions for the con- 
duct of affairs to Andrew Hunter, and completely ignoring 
the commonwealth's attorney. To Hunter, Harding was a 
"pestiferous little prosecutor," ^=^ whom he longed to have 
out of the way. "When Harding began to speak, if you shut 
your eyes and listened, for the first few minutes you would 
think Patrick Henry had returned to earth; after that he 
dwindled away into ineptitudes," — is the recollection of one 
who knew him well." During the trial he frequently fell 
asleep as the result of his libations. Of a different type^ was 
Andrew Hunter, a man of distinguished bearing, a vigor- 
ous Southern personality, handsome face and undoubted 
ability. Deeply impressed with the importance of the trial, 
he prosecuted John Brown with marked aggressiveness, yield- 
ing no point and fighting every moment, often with some 
bombast, but without, said Mr. Voorhees, "a single tone of 
malevolence or exasperation." " Mr. Hunter sincerely felt 
that, in view of the public temper, no time was to be lost; 
he wanted Brown condemned and executed within ten 
days. "The Judge," Mr. Hunter wrote to Governor Wise, 
"is for observing all the judicial decencies; so am I, but at 
double quick time. . . . Stephens will hardly be fit for trial. 
He will probably die of his wounds if we don't hang him 
promptly." ^^ 



486 JOHN BROWN 

With Charlestown all agog and crowded with newspaper- 
men, militia and armed citizens, John Brown and his four 
fellow prisoners, Coppoc, Stevens, Copeland and Green, 
took, on October 25, the first of their short pilgrimages from 
the jail to the court-house diagonally opposite, which they 
were to make historic. Its venerable air, the distinctively 
Southern character of its architecture, made it then, as now, 
an impressive structure. A gaping mob watched in silence 
as, between two lines of militia, the Yankee prisoners took 
their way. For John Brown and Stevens, though carried 
later, on this occasion walked the brief distance, the former 
with head erect and defiant bearing. "His confinement has 
not at all tamed the daring of his spirit; his height, as he 
stood erect, appeared to be full six feet; his figure rather slen- 
der and wiry," — so telegraphed the Herald correspondent." 
Brown's eyes were swollen; the marks of bruises and contu- 
sions were plain enough. Stevens's terrible wounds were so 
evident, and his inability to walk unsupported so pitiful, 
that, anxious as the crowd was for these men's blood, there 
was not a hostile demonstration as they entered the crowded, 
down-at-the-heel court-room, reeking with tobacco smoke 
and looking as if it were familiar with every kind of being 
save the scrub-woman. John Brown, manacled to Coppoc, 
found no trace of pity in the faces of the crowd he beheld, 
nor in those of the eight magistrates forming the court of 
examination to which the prisoners were now presented by 
the sheriff. 

"Sundry witnesses," so read the minutes, "were examined, 
and the Court being unanimously of opinion that the Prisoners 
are Guilty of the offence with which they stand charged, it 
is ordered and considered by the Court that they be sent on 
to the Circuit Court of this County for trial according to 
Law."^^ Behind this brief record lies one of the dramatic 
incidents of the trial, for when the court, before assigning 
to the prisoners Messrs. Faulkner and Botts, asked whether 
they had counsel, John Brown of Osawatomie rose feebly from 
his seat and, with his usual vigor of utterance, his undaunted 
courage and indomitable spirit, thus addressed, not the court 
but his countrymen, amid the most profound silence and at- 
tention of all who heard: 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 487 

"Virginians, I did not ask for any quarter at the time I was taken. 
1 did not ask to have my life spared. The Governor of the State of 
Virginia tendered me his assurance that I should have a fair trial ; 
but, under no circumstances whatever will I be able to have a fair 
trial. If you seek my blood, you can have it at any moment, without 
this mockery of a trial. I have had no counsel ; I have not been able 
to advise with any one. I know nothing about the feelings of my 
fellow prisoners, and am utterly unable to attend in any way to my 
own defence. My memory don't serve me: my health is insufficient, 
although improving. There are mitigating circumstances that I 
would urge'in our favor, if a fair trial is to be allowed us: but if we are 
to be forced with a mere form — a trial for execution — you might 
spare yourselves that trouble. I am ready for my fate. I do not ask 
a trial. I beg for no mockery of a trial — no insult — nothing but 
that which conscience gives, or cowardice would drive you to practise. 
I ask again to be excused from the mockery of a trial. I do not even 
know what the special design of this examination is. I do not know 
what is to be the benefit of it to the Commonwealth. I have now little 
further to ask, other than that I may not be foolishly insulted only 
as cowardly barbarians insult those who fall into their power." ^^ 

When asked if he would accept Messrs. Faulkner and Botts 
as counsel, he replied: "I wish for counsel if I am to have 
a trial, but if I am to have nothing but the mockery of a 
trial, as I said, I do not care anything about counsel — it is 
unnecessary to trouble any gentleman with that duty."*^ He 
declined to say whether he would or would not accept the 
counsel offered, but Stevens chose them, and they were duly 
assigned, in the face of John Brown's assertion that he had 
sent for some persons In the North whose names he could not 
then recall. He was but little Interested when the witnesses, 
Colonel Washington and seven others, testified to their know- 
ledge of the raid. Still less was he moved when the presiding 
justice, Colonel Braxton Davenport, announced the decision 
of the court. His bearing was as Impressive as before when, 
again manacled, he and his fellow prisoners left the dingy 
court-room with its five or six hundred spectators, and took 
their way back to the jail. That same afternoon their com- 
rade Cook was arrested in Pennsylvania, thanks to the re- 
ward offered by Virginia." 

The next move In the judicial machinery was the process 
of Indictment. At two o'clock the examining magistrates 
reported their conclusions. Judge Parker at once charged the 



488 JOHN BROWN 

Grand Jury ably and dispassionately, and having heard from 
excellent authority of a deliberate plot to lynch the prison- 
ers, he added to his charge a warning against any such con- 
duct, which, he declared, would be disgraceful to the State 
and nothing else than murder, for which its perpetrators might 
themselves incur the extreme penalty of the law. Thereafter 
no talk of lynching was heard, and Judge Parker was de- 
servedly congratulated far and wide for his high-minded and 
courageous stand. The Grand Jury then retired with the 
State's witnesses. Before it were rehearsed anew their oft- 
told stories, and adjournment time came before they were fin- 
ished. At noon on the next day, Wednesday, the Grand Jury 
reported its true bill against each of the prisoners on three 
counts — treason to the commonwealth, conspiring with slaves 
to commit treason, and murder; they being "evil-minded and 
traitorous persons," "not having the fear of God before 
their eyes, but being moved and seduced by the false and ma- 
lignant counsel of other evil and traitorous persons and the 
instigations of the devil, "^^ — go runs the indictment. 

Those instigated by the Evil One were soon brought into 
court, — Stevens on a mattress, making, because of his dif- 
ficulty in breathing, the impression of a dying man. Captain 
Avis, the jailer, when ordered to bring Brown into court, 
found him in bed and unwilling to arise. "He was accordingly 
carried into the court-room on a cot," wrote the Tribune 
correspondent. "The prisoner lay most of the time with his 
eyes closed, and the counterpane drawn close up to his chin. 
He is evidently not much injured, but is determined to resist 
the pushing of his trial, by all the means in his power." ^^ It 
was at this time that John Brown arose and made an unavail- 
ing plea for delay to Judge Parker: 

" I do not intend to detain the court, but barely wish to say, as I 
have been promised a fair trial, that I am not now in circumstances 
that enable me to attend a trial, owing to the state of my health. I 
have a severe wound in the back, or rather in one kidney, which 
enfeebles me very much. But I am doing well, and I only ask for a 
very short delay of my trial, and I think I may be able to listen to it; 
and I merely ask this that, as the saying is 'the devil may have his 
dues,' no more. I wish to say further that my hearing is impaired 
and rendered indistinct in consequence of wounds I have about my 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 489 

head. I cannot hear distinctly at all ; I could not hear what the Court 
has said this morning. I would be glad to hear what is said on my 
trial, and am now doing better than I could expect to be under the 
circumstances. A very short delay would be all I would ask. I do 
not presume to ask more than a very short delay, so that I may 
in some degree recover, and be able at least to listen to my trial, 
and hear what questions are asked of the citizens, and what their 
answers are. If that could be allowed me, I should be very much 
obliged." " 

Judge Parker, dignified and firm, with a singularly stern 
countenance in marked contrast to his mild and quiet manner, 
insisted on the arraignment being read before passing upon 
John Brown's appeal. Both the wounded prisoners were com- 
pelled to stand during this solemn performance, Stevens being 
held up by two bailiffs. Thereupon, both Mr. Hunter and Mr. 
Harding having opposed the motion for delay, and the jail 
physician, a Dr. Mason, having testified that John Brown's 
wounds had affected neither his hearing nor his mind, nor seri- 
ously disabled him, the judge refused to postpone his trial. 
As each of the prisoners had pleaded not guilty and elected 
to be tried separately, the State had chosen to try the Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the defeated Provisional Army first, and 
the rest of the afternoon was given to choosing the jury. 
Twenty-four men duly qualified to act as jurors were then 
selected from a large panel, after being asked the usual ques- 
tion whether they had formed any opinion about the guilt 
of the prisoners which would disqualify them from giving 
the offenders a fair trial. Of these twenty-four, John Brown, 
through his counsel, exercised his right to challenge peremp- 
torily eight; from the remaining sixteen the final twelve were 
then chosen b^^ lot, and the court adjourned until the next day, 
after solemnly adjuring the twelve to discuss the case with no 
one.''^ It is, of course, impossible to believe that the twelve 
men chosen had not formed any opinion about the case. There 
were no men in Jefferson County who had not prejudged 
Brown, and if ever a motion for a change of venue to another 
county was in order, it was in this case. But his Southern 
counsel did not attempt it. 

On Thursday, when court opened, Mr. Botts surprised 
prisoner and prosecution alike by reading a telegram from 
Akron, Ohio, alleging insanity in John Brown's family. Of the 



490 JOHN BROWN 

plea of insanity which this suggested, John Brown promptly 
declined to avail himself, as will appear later. But, his coun- 
sel having again urged delay, the vigilant prosecutors again 
opposed, and the judge once more decided that he could see 
no proper cause for postponement. The indictment being 
read, the attorneys for the State and Mr. Botts made their 
opening addresses. It was due to the prisoner, said his chival- 
rous counsel, to state that he believed himself to be actuated 
by the highest and noblest feelings that ever coursed through 
a human breast, and that his instructions were to destroy 
neither life nor property. Mr. Hunter confined himself to a 
definition of treason, told of a previous murder in the arsenal 
grounds for which the murderer was tried and executed, not by 
the United States but by Virginia, and wound up by begging 
for a fair and impartial consideration of the case, "without 
fear or favor. ... I ask only that the penalty be visited on the 
prisoner which the law denounces, which reason denounces, 
which our safety requires, and which the laws of God and man 
approve." ^^ Thereupon began the examination of witnesses. 
It was the next morning, Friday, that the "beardless boy" 
from Boston walked into the court-room and asked to be made 
an additional counsel for Brown. The astonishment was pro- 
found ; it increased when Hoyt expressed the wish not to take 
part in the case at present, and when he was unable to prove 
that he was actually a member of the Massachusetts Bar, as 
the suspicious Mr. Hunter asked him to demonstrate. But the 
just judge was not inclined to quibble. Visiting lawyers from 
the North were already, as the Tribune reported, eulogizing 
his method of presiding, and were "profuse in praises of his 
candor and integrity." " It was enough for the judge that 
Mr. Green remembered that his partner had seen letters 
speaking of Hoyt as a full-fledged attorney. Thereupon the 
oath was administered ^^ and the examination of witnesses 
continued. By this time the prisoner was taking more interest 
in his defence. He had drawn up the following suggestions for 
his counsel : 

"We gave to numerous prisoners perfect liberty. 
^' Get all their names. ^ _ . 

"We allowed numerous other prisoners to visit their families, to 
quiet their fears. 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 491 

*' Get all their names. 

"We allowed the conductor to pass his train over the bridge with 
all his passengers, I myself crossing the bridge with him, and as- 
suring all the passengers of their perfect safety. 

" Get that conductor's name, and the names of the passejigers, so Jar 
as may be. 

"We treated all our prisoners with the utmost kindness and hu- 
manity. 

'^ Get all their names, so Jar as may be. 

"Our orders, from the first and throughout, were, that no un- 
armed person should be injured, under any circumstances whatever. 

' ' Prove that by all the prisoners. 

"We committed no destruction or waste of property. 

'' Prove that:' ""^ 

The prosecution having rested on Friday afternoon, the 
defence began. Messrs. Botts and Green followed John 
Brown's suggestion, and essayed to prove, apparently with a 
view to mitigating the offence charged, the kindness with 
which Brown treated his prisoners. This drew from Andrew 
Hunter the caustic and truthful comment that testimony to 
Brown's forbearance in not shooting other citizens had no 
more to do with the case than had the dead languages. 

Only on one occasion during the trial did John Brown show 
emotion. He "cried out" for details, so read the reports, when 
Harry Hunter narrated the revolting story of William Thomp- 
son's slaughter on the Harper's Ferry bridge. It became 
Andrew Hunter's painful duty to listen to his son's open and 
unabashed tale of how he and George W. Chambers shot down 
Thompson, when the latter was unarmed and pleading for his 
life. It is to the father's credit that he bade his son conceal 
nothing; but it is doubtful if any father ever listened to a more 
cold-blooded recital of deliberate killing by his offspring. Yet 
the audience listened apparently unmoved, while John Brown 
groaned. Shortly afterward, when the names of several wit- 
nesses were called with no response, John Brown excitedly 
rose to his feet and spoke thus to the keen-eyed judge on the 
dais above him : 

"May it please the Court: — I discover that notwithstanding all 
the assurances I have received of a fair trial, nothing like a fair 
trial is to be given me, as it would seem. I gave the names, as soon 
as I could get them, of the persons I wished to have called as wit- 
nesses, and was assured that they would be subpoenaed. I wrote 



492 JOHN BROWN 

down a memorandum to that effect, saying where those parties 
were; but it appears that they have not been subpoenaed as far as 
I can learn ; and now I ask, if I am to have anything at all deserving 
the name and shadow of a fair trial, that this proceeding be deferred 
until tomorrow morning; for I have no counsel, as I before stated, 
in whom I feel that I can rely, but I am in hopes counsel may arrive 
who will attend to seeing that I get the witnesses who are neces- 
sary for my defence. I am myself unable to attend to it. I have 
given all the attention I possibly could to it, but am unable to see or 
know about them, and can't even find out their names; and I have 
nobody to do any errands, for my money was all taken when I was 
sacked and stabbed, and I have not a dime. I had two hundred and 
fifty or sixty dollars in gold and silver taken from my pocket, and 
now I have no possible means of getting anybody to go my errands 
for me, and I have not had all the witnesses subpoenaed. They 
are not within reach, and are not here. I ask at least until tomorrow 
morning to have something done, if anything is designed ; if not, I 
am ready for anything that may come up."™ 

"When, upon finding that his witnesses were absent," 
reported the Herald's correspondent, 

"Brown rose and denounced his counsel, declaring he had no con- 
fidence in them, the indignation of the citizens scarcely knew bounds. 
He was stigmatized as an ungrateful villain, and some declared he 
deserved hanging for that act alone. His counsel, Messrs. Botts 
and Green, had certainly performed the ungrateful task imposed 
upon them by the Court in an able, faithful and conscientious man- 
ner; and only the evening before Brown had told Mr. Botts that 
he was doing for him even more than he had promised." ^^ 

No sooner had Brown finished this speech than Mr. Hoyt 
sprang to his feet, adding greatly to the stir in the court-room, 
and asking that the case be postponed, because Judge Tilden 
from Ohio was coming and due that night to aid in the defence. 
He, himself, was unable to go on alone with Brown's case, for he 
had but just come from Boston, travelling night and day, had 
had no time to read the indictment, and was wholly ignorant 
of the criminal code of Virginia. After asserting that they had 
done everything possible for their client, Mr. Botts and Mr. 
Green announced that they could no longer act in behalf of the 
prisoner, since he had declared that he had no confidence in 
them. Judge Parker at once replied that he would not compel 
them to stay in the case, and that he therefore granted Mr. 
Hoyt's request and adjourned the trial until the next morning 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 493 

at ten. Thus, to his utter amazement and inward consterna- 
tion, the " beardless boy," the spy sent to survey the ground, 
found himself charged with the sole responsibility for the 
conduct of a case of which he knew little or nothing, under 
a code and procedure with which he was entirely unfamiliar, 
and this in a trial which the hostile New York Herald had 
four days before characterized as the most notable in the last 
half-century "in point of national importance." The trial of 
Aaron Burr had excited less intense feeling; the Herald even 
felt that the life and death of the whole Republic was involved. 
The situation in which the inexperienced Mr. Hoyt now found 
himself might have tried the soul of a veteran and skilled prac- 
titioner; it undoubtedly blanched his beardless cheeks. But 
it is to his everlasting credit that he bent manfully to his task. 

Mr. Botts put his notes, his office and his services at Hoyt's 
command, and sat up with him the greater part of the night.^^ 
When Judge Parker took his seat on the bench the next morn- 
ing, there was reinforcement for Brown's inexperienced coun- 
sel, — not Judge Tilden, as had been expected, but Samuel 
Chilton, of Washington, and Hiram Griswold, of Cleveland. 
Mr. Chilton's arrival was due to John A. Andrew, of Boston, 
who first asked Judge Montgomery Blair, of Washington, to 
act as Brown's defender, guaranteeing him adequate compen- 
sation. Judge Blair being unwilling to appear, Mr. Andrew 
agreed to his substitution of Mr. Chilton." John Brown him- 
self had written to Judge Daniel R. Tilden, of Cleveland, and 
Judge Thomas Russell, of Boston, asking them to become his 
legal advisers. Judge Russell came in person, but not until the 
day of sentence; Judge Tilden sent Mr. Griswold in his place. 
To Tilden and Russell, John Brown wrote that, without such 
counsel, "neither the facts in our case can come before the 
world; nor can ive have the benefit of such facts (as might be 
considered mitigating in the view of others) upon our trial. 
... Do not send an ultra Abolitionist." ^* 

Both Chilton and Griswold asked for a delay of a few hours, 
in order that they might be better equipped for their tasks, 
but the inexorable judge ordered the trial to proceed. The pris- 
oner had had able counsel and ample defence; he had chosen 
to make a change, for which the responsibility was on his own 
shoulders. If this were the only case before the court, he 



494 JOHN BROWN 

would at once grant the request; but the nearness of the end 
of the term, and the other cases to be disposed of, necessitated 
prompt action, in justice to the prisoners and to the State. Mr. 
Hoyt then resumed the defence along the same lines as Messrs. 
Botts and Green, hoping to prove through those witnesses 
who had been prisoners in the engine house the absence of 
any malicious intent. John Brown himself now took a hand in 
examining the witnesses from his cot, without objection from 
any one to this unusual procedure. 

In the afternoon session, a new policy was adopted, Mr. 
Chilton submitting a motion that the prosecution be com- 
pelled to elect one count of the indictment and abandon the 
others. His argument, supported by a couple of hastily 
gathered citations, was that different descriptions of treason 
could not be united in the same indictment, as was the case 
there. That it was a grave hardship upon the prisoner to 
defend himself at one and the same time against three such 
distinct charges as murder, treason and inciting slaves to 
rebel, Mr. Chilton also pointed out. The judge, after hearing 
spirited replies from Hunter and Harding, ruled that, as the 
trial had been begun under the indictment, it must continue; 
that the only remedy now was to move an arrest of judg- 
ment at its conclusion. "The very fact that the offence can 
be charged in different counts, varying the language and cir- 
cumstances, is based upon the idea that distinct offences 
may be charged in the same Indictment," ruled Judge Parker. 
"The prisoners are to be tried on the various counts as if they 
were various transactions. There is no legal objection against 
charging various crimes in the same indictment. The practice 
has been to put a party upon election where the prisoner would 
be embarrassed in his defence; but that is not the law." * In 
this contention Judge Parker was later upheld by the full 
bench of the Virginia Court of Appeals." 

* The decision of Judge Parker is in accord with the law of New York State 
to-day, which holds that where the same acts constitute different crimes, they 
may be set out in the indictment in different counts. Thus an indictment may 
unite burglary in the third degree, petit larceny and receiving stolen property. 
See People vs. Stock, 21 Misc. 147; People vs. Wilson, 151 N. Y. 403. In People 
vs. Austin, I Park Criminal Reports, 154, it was held that "the right of election is 
confined to cases where the indictment contains charges which are actually dis- 
tinct and grew out of different transactions." 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 495 

This argument was the crucial point in the trial of John 
Brown. The court now pressed the lawyers to argue the case 
at once. John Brown's counsel protested, Hoyt because he 
had worked the previous night until he fell unconscious from 
exhaustion, and had had but ten hours sleep in the last five 
days and nights. Mr. Hunter battled, of course, against any 
delay, and the court, taking a position which would seem 
strange indeed in a modern murder trial, — that the jurors, 
having been in the box three days, were entitled to early 
release, — ordered the prosecution to begin their summing up. 
Mr. Harding did so by dwelling on the absurdity of John 
Brown's claim that he should have been treated according 
to the rules of warfare, when he was merely in command of 
a band of murderers and thieves. The court then adjourned 
over Sunday, to Andrew Hunter's vexation, for he had insisted 
that the trial be concluded that night. At the time and later. 
Hunter accused John Brown — the "crafty old fiend," he 
called him — of feigning illness on this day to gain time.^^ 
When the court had reassembled on Saturday afternoon, word 
came from the jail, according to Hunter, 

" that Brown was too sick to appear that evening. I suspected the 
ruse, and at once suggested to the court to have the jail physician 
summoned to examine whether he was too sick and to report. This 
was done, and the physician, who was Dr. Mason, promptly re- 
ported that he was not too sick and that he was feigning. On my 
motion the court directed him to be brought into court on a cot. 
. . . The trial went on to a certain extent, but every effort was 
made to protract it. I resisted it, but at last, late in the evening, 
the Judge called me up and said he thought we had better agree, 
to avoid all further cavil at our proceedings, to let the case be ad- 
journed over until Monday, which was done. Brown did not require 
to be carried back to jail that evening; he walked back. After the 
adjournment was procured, he was well enough to walk."" 

On Sunday, Hoyt reported to his employer, Le Barnes, 
that Mr. Chilton and Mr. Griswold had been closeted with 
John Brown for three or four hours, that, 

"Brown is well pleased with what has transpired; is perfectly sat- 
isfied, and more than all the rest, seems to be inspired with a truly 
noble Resignation." "I confess," Hoyt continues, "I did not know 
which most to admire, the thorough honor and admirable qualities 
of the brave old border soldier, or the uncontaminated simplicity 



496 JOHN BROWN 

of the man. My friend John Brown is an astonishing character. 
The people about here, while determined to have him die for his 
alleged offences, generally concede and applaud the conscientious- 
ness, the honor, and the supreme bravery of the man." ^* 

On Monday, Mr. Griswold and Mr. Chilton argued at 
length and as ably as it was possible under the circumstances, 
and at half-past one Mr. Hunter concluded the case by saying 
to the jury, ''Administer it [justice] according to your law 
— acquit the prisoner if you can; but if justice requires you 
by your verdict to take his life, stand by that column [of 
justice] uprightly, but strongly, and let retributive justice, if 
he is guilty, send him before that Maker who will settle the 
question forever and ever." 

Three-quarters of an hour later, the jury filed back into 
court to answer the question whether the prisoner at the bar 
was guilty or not guilty. Of all the men in that stifling court- 
room, — and the crowd not only filled every inch of space 
around the prisoner, but jammed the wide entrance-hall and 
even stood on the entrance-steps in the hope of catching a 
word from within, — the least moved was John Brown, as in- 
domitable and iron-willed as ever in his life. When, in reply 
to the clerk of the court, the foreman answered " Aye " to the 
question whether John Brown was guilty of treason, and con- 
spiring and advising with slaves and others to rebel, and mur- 
der in the first degree, that leader of men said not a word. 
Turning, he readjusted the covers of his pallet and stretched 
himself upon it as if he had no interest in the proceedings. 
Indeed, if he had expressed any interest, it would doubtless 
have been jubilation. For by then John Brown had dreamed 
his dream and seen his vision. There had come to him, as by 
a revelation, the knowledge that through the portals of death 
alone lay the way to the success denied in life. His eagle eye 
had pierced the veil of the future; it was as if it had been 
given to him to see tramping over the hills of Virginia those 
blue-coated hosts to whom, two years later, John Brown was 
neither lunatic, nor fanatic, nor murderer. ' He had become, 
in his own words, "fully persuaded that I am worth incon- 
ceivably more to hang than for any other purpose," " and the 
longer he lay in his prison cell and wore his chains, the more 
ready was he for the sacrifice and the atonement. His only 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 497 

fear had been that all the effect of his work would be undone 
by a pronunciamento that he was insane. 

It is to the credit of the Charlestown crowd and of Virginia 
that not a single sound of elation or of triumph assailed the 
dignity of the court, when the jury sealed Brown's doom. In 
solemn silence the crowd heard Mr. Chilton make his formal 
motion for an arrest of judgment because of errors in the in- 
dictment and in the verdict, and it filed out equally silent 
when Judge Parker, owing to the exhaustion of the counsel 
on both sides, ordered the motion to stand over until the next 
day. The judge lost, however, not a moment in beginning 
the trial of Edwin Coppoc, for a jury was sworn that after- 
noon. 

On November i the argument on the motion was heard, 
John Brown again lying on his cot, though now fully able to 
walk. Judge Parker reserved his decision, but only for twenty- 
four hours. For on November 2 came the final act in the 
court-room. Judge Parker afterward wrote: 

" I went into court at the usual early hour with an opinion I had 
prepared the preceding night, in which I had at length stated the rea- 
sons for over-ruling the objections which Brown's counsel had made 
to judgment being rendered, intending to pronounce it so soon as 
the court was opened; but a jury for the trial of Coppoc . . . were 
in their seats, and as the same objections, or some of them, might 
be made in this case as had been presented in that of Brown, I re- 
frained from reading the opinion. I did this because by the Vir- 
ginia practice a jury in a criminal case were held to be judges of 
the law as well as triers of facts, and I would do nothing to prejudice 
this their right. For this reason I did not overrule Brown's motion 
in arrest until late on the day, after a verdict was rendered in the 
case of Coppoc." ^° 

Again there was a thrill in the crowded court-room, when 
the clerk asked John Brown whether he had anything to say 
why sentence should not be pronounced upon him. And well 
the crowd might be stirred, for what it was now to hear from 
the lips of the man for whose life it thirsted must forever 
remain on the list of great American speeches, ^^ an utter- 
ance worthy not merely of the man who voiced it, but of 
the mighty cause of human freedom for which he struck so 
powerful a blow. Drawing himself up to his full stature, with 
flashing eagle eyes and calm, clear and distinct tones, John 



498 JOHN BROWN 

Brown again addressed, not the men who surrounded him, but 
the whole body of his countrymen, North, South, East and 
West:* 

"I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say. 

"In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along 
admitted: of a design on my part to free slaves. I intended cer- 
tainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last win- 
ter, when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the 
soapping of a gun on either side,t moving them through the coun- 
try, and finally leaving them in Canada. I designed to have done 
the same thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. 
I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of pro- 
perty, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insur- 
rection. 

"I have another objection, and that is that it is unjust that I 
should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which 
I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved — for I admire 
the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses 
who have testified in this case — had I so interfered in behalf of 
the rich, the powerful, the inteUigent, the so-called great, or in 
behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, 
wife or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed 
what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every 
man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward 
rather than punishment. 

"This Court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the 
law of God. I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, 
or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things 
whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so 
to them. It teaches me, further, to remember them that are in 
bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to that instruc- 
tion. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any re- 
specter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, 
as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of His de- 
spised poor, I did no wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed neces- 
sary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of 
justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children 

* An eye-witoess, Judge Thomas Russell, wrote in the Boston Traveller, No- 
vember 5, 1859, that John Brown "delivered the remarkable speech which you 
have just read, speaking with perfect calmness of voice and mildness of manner, 
winning the respect of all for his courage and firmness. His self-possession was 
wonderful, because his sentence, at this time, was unexpected, and his remarks 
were entirely unprepared." 

t This statement is hard to understand in view of Stevens's killing of Cruise. 
Brown may have intended to speak here only of that party of raiders that he 
himself commanded. 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 499 

and with the blood of milHons in this slave country whose rights 
are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I say, 
let it be done. 

"Let me say one word further. I feel entirely satisfied with the 
treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circum- 
stances, it has been more generous than I expected. But I feel no 
consciousness of guilt. I have stated from the first what was my 
intention, and what was not. I never had any design against the 
liberty of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason or 
incite slaves to rebel or make any general insurrection. I never 
encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of 
that kind. 

"Let me say, also, in regard to the statements made by some of 
those who were connected with me, I hear it has been stated by 
some of them that I have induced them to join me. But the con- 
trary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting 
their weakness. Not one but joined me of his own accord, and the 
greater part at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, 
and never had a word of conversation with, till the day they came 
to me, and that was for the purpose I have stated. 

"Now, I have done."*^ 

With all solemnity, Judge Parker then pronounced the 
sentence of death, and fixed Friday, the 2d of December, as 
the date of execution, specifying that the hanging should be 
public, and recording his belief that no reasonable doubt could 
exist as to John Brown's guilt. But, in allowing him a whole 
month more of life, the judge gave him that opportunity to 
influence public opinion in the North in his favor, of which 
he so admirably availed himself. It was a bitter disappoint- 
ment to Hunter that Judge Parker permitted the condemned 
man to live so long. Indeed, one of the leading men In the 
county, when Informed In advance by Mr. Parker that he 
would give John Brown thirty days prior to his execution, 
declared that then there would be a grave tumult in the court- 
room; that the people "would tear Browm to pieces before 
he could be taken from the building." This somewhat dis- 
turbed the judge, who notified the jailer. Captain Avis, w^hat 
to expect, but declined to let soldiers Into the court-room; 
for he could not get over the jurist's righteous repugnance 
to seeing "armed men in a court of justice." When the sen- 
tence was pronounced, there was again perfect order In the 
court-room; one man clapped his hands, but was promptly 
suppressed, the citizens expressing due regret, afterward, at 



500 JOHN BROWN 

this breach of decorum. The judge then ordered all present 
to retain their seats until the prisoner was removed. There 
was prompt obedience, and John Brown reached his cell un- 
harmed, without even hearing a taunt.^^ In view of the pub- 
lic fears and excitement, such self-control does great credit to 
this deeply stirred Virginia community. 

With John Brown sentenced to be hanged, Governor Wise 
became immediately the recipient of much individual and 
journalistic advice as to what course he should pursue. The 
Joint Committee of the Virginia General Assembly reported, 
the following January, that, 

"a great many letters were received by the Governor from citizens 
of Northern states, urging him to pardon the offenders, or to com- 
mute this punishment. Some of them were written in a spirit of 
menace, threatening his life and that of members of his family. 
. . . Others gave notice of the purpose of resolute bands of despera- 
does to fire the principal towns and cities of Virginia. . _. . Others 
appealed to his clemency, to his magnanimity, and to his hopes of 
future political promotion as . . . motives for his intervention in 
behalf of the convicted felons. Another class (and among these were 
letters from men of national reputation) besought him to pardon 
them on the ground of public policy." ^* 

But even in the South there were two voices, those that 
were for execution of the sentence, and those that wished 
mercy to be shown. ''Like the neighboring population, we 
go in for a summary vengeance," said the Savannah Repub- 
lican. "A terrible example should be made, that will stand 
out as a beacon-light in all time to come." «^ "Virginia and the 
South are ready to face all the consequences of the execution 
of old Brown and his confederates," wrote the Richmond 
Whig: 

"Though it convert the whole Northern people, without an ex- 
ception, into furious, armed abolition invaders, yet old Brown will 
be hung ! That is the stern and irreversible decree, not only of the 
authorities of Virginia, but of the people of Virginia, without a dis- 
senting voice. And, therefore, Virginia, and the people of Virginia, 
will treat with the contempt they deserve, all the craven appeals of 
Northern men in behalf of old Brown's pardon. The miserable old 
traitor and murderer belongs to the gallows, and the gallows will have 
its own." ^"^ 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 501 

These sentiments were shared in the North by the New 
York Observer, the organ of the Presbyterians, and the Herald, 
of course, could see no reason why the law should not claim 
its victims. 

But there were other voices in both sections. Thus the 
New York Journal of Commerce, rabidly pro-slavery and bit- 
ter in its denunciations of Brown, thought that: 

"To hang a fanatic is to make a martyr of him and fledge another 
brood of the same sort. Better send these creatures to the peniten- 
tiary, and so make of them miserable felons. In the present state 
of the country, the latter course is, no doubt, the wisest; and if 
those men in Virginia who desire to apply the Lynch code to the 
helpless wretches now awaiting trial, reflect for a moment, they 
will perceive the folly of such a course. They would not only dis- 
grace their State, but place another weapon in the hands of their 
enemies. The murder of Joe Smith did not check Mormonism, but 
rather gave it a new impetus; nor would the hanging of scores of 
Abolitionists have any better effect. Monsters are hydra-headed, 
and decapitation only quickens vitality, and power of reproduc- 
tion." " 

The Liberator, which was the particular abomination of the 
Journal of Commerce, was for once of the same opinion. "It 
will be a terribly losing day for all Slavedom," wrote Mr. 
Garrison, "when John Brown and his associates are brought 
to the gallows." ^^ From the Berryville, Virginia, Clarke Jour- 
nal came this wise warning: 

" As a Christian people we are bound to respect the motives of the 
sincere and conscientious, however mistaken. We do not care to 
weaken our position by shedding the blood of such and giving them 
no time for repentance, if we can free ourselves from their annoyance 
by their confinement, as we would confine a mad dog. But blood for 
blood has been shed — more blood on their side than on ours. It is 
now only a question of policy as to the further proceeding. Will it do 
more good to go on shedding blood while we can find any to shed, or 
to stop now and confine the rest for life? Our judgment is — and 
we are bound to give it, if every subscriber stops his paper, as we 
have been threatened to some extent — in favor of the latter. More 
good can be done, as a pure question of policy, by staying the effu- 
sion of blood. Now, if this be treason, make the most of it. We will 
be as ready to die for a conviction as John Brown. As a pure ques- 
tion of policy, we have most to gain by a moderate, placable, con- 
servative course. . . . But now the deed is done, and blood has 
been shed in return, and a few are fugitives and outcasts on the 



502' <' VJQHN BROWN 

4 ~^. t 
earth, and the rest are",m ^chains and dungeons. How much more 

can a generous, magnanimous people ask? How will it appear in 

the eyes of the world, the unfavoring world to slavery, to ask more 

— even to the last drop of their blood ? We must remember that but 

a small part of the Christian and civilized world are on our side in 

regard to Slavery." ^^ 

A Kentucky newspaper, the Frankfort Yeoman, held simi- 
lar views: 

"If old John Brown is executed, there will be thousands to dip 
their handkerchiefs in his blood ; relics of the martyr will be paraded 
throughout the North . . . and Governor Wise would be compared 
to Julian the Apostate or to Graham of Claverhouse. ... If a Eu- 
ropean despot . . . can strike the chains from thousand of captives 
. . . think of the shame that must rest upon the commonwealth of 
Virginia ... if her security demands and receives the blood of one 
old brave bad man." **" 

Among the thousands of other letters prophesying, threat- 
ening, imploring or arguing for John Brown's life, none was 
more interesting than that from Fernando Wood, the notori- 
ous New York politician, soon to be chosen for the third time 
mayor of the city in which he wrote: 

" Your proceedings and conduct thus far in the matter of the 
conspiracy at Harper's Ferry meets with general approval, and 
elicits commendation from your enemies. The firmness and mod- 
eration which has characterized your course cannot be too highly 
applauded and today you stand higher than any other man in the 
Union. Now, my friend, dare you do a bold thing and temper 'jus- 
tice with Mercy ' ? Have you nerve enough to send Brown to the 
States Prison instead of hanging him? Brown is looked upon here 
as the mere crazy or foolhardy emissary of other men. Circum- 
stances create a sympathy for him even with the most ultra friends 
of the South. I am of this latter class, as by recent speeches you 
may have observed. No southern man could go further than myself 
in behalf of southern rights, but yet were I the Governor of Virginia, 
Brown should not be hung, though Seward should be if I could 
catch him. And in such a course my conduct would be governed 
by sound policy. The South will gain by showing that it can be 
magnanimous to a fanatic in its power. We who fight its battles 
can gain largely by pointing to such an instance of ' chivalry.' " ^^ 

Governor Wise's reply is so characteristic of the man, and 
states so clearly the reasons which actuated him, in refusing 



GUILTY BEFORE THE^LAW 503 

to urge clemency or mitigation of sentence upon the Legis- 
lature, — which alone had the power to so act in treason 
cases, although the Governor's language conveys a different 
impression, — that it merits consideration here: 



Richmond Va Nov. 4th, 1859. 

My dear sir, — I have duly received and weighed every word of 
your letter. I give it all credit for good motive and good morals, 
and as suggesting what perhaps is good policy. Now, listen to me, 
for my mind is inflexibly made up. 

Had I reached Harpers Ferry before these men were captured 
(and I would have reached there in time, had I been forwarded as I 
ought to have been from Washington & the relay house), I would 
have proclaimed martial law, have stormed them in the quickest pos- 
sible time, have given them no quarter, and if any had survived, I 
would have tried and executed them under sentence of Court Martial. 
But I was too late. The prisoners were captives, and I then deter- 
mined to protect them to the uttermost of my power, and I did 
protect them with my own person. I escorted them to prison and 
placed around them such a force as to overawe Lynch-law. Every 
comfort was given them by my orders. And they have been scrupu- 
lously afforded a fair and speedy trial, with every opportunity of 
defence for crimes, which were openly perpetrated before the eyes 
of hundreds and as openly confessed. They could escape conviction 
only by technical exceptions, and the chances for these they had to 
a greater degree by the expedition of prosecution. And the crimes 
deliberately done by them are of the deepest and darkest kind which 
can be committed against our people. Brown, the chief leader, has 
been legally and fairly tried and convicted and admits the humanity 
of his treatment as a prisoner, the truth of the indictment and the 
truthfulness of the witnesses against him. He has been allowed 
excess of counsel, and the freedom of speech beyond any prisoner 
known to me in our trials. It was impossible not to convict him. 
He is sentenced to be hung; — that is the sentence of a mild code 
humanely adjudged and requires no duty from me except to see that 
it be executed. I have to sign no death warrant. If the Executive 
interposes at all, it is to pardon. And to pardon him I have received 
petitions, prayers, threats, from almost every free State in the 
Union. From honest patriotic men like yourself, many of them, I 
am warned that hanging will make him a Martyr. Ah ! — Will it? — 
Why? — The obvious answer to that question shows me above any- 
thing the necessity for hanging him. You ask: — "Have you nerve 
enough to send Brown to States Prison for life instead of hanging 
him ? " — Yes, if I did n't think he ought to be hung and that I would 
be inexcusable for mitigating his punishment. I could do it without 
flinching, without a quiver of a muscle against a universal clamor 



504 JOHN BROWN 

for his life. But was it ever known before that it would be impolitic 
for a state to execute her laws against the highest crimes without 
bringing down upon herself the vengeance of a public sentinient 
outside of her limits and hostile to her laws? — Is it so that it is 
wisely said to her that she had better spare a murderer, a robber, 
a traitor, because public sentiment elsewhere will glorify an insur- 
rectionist with Martyrdom? If so it is time to do execution upon 
him and all like him. And I therefore say to you firmly that I have 
precisely the nerve enough to let him be executed with the certainty 
of his condemnation. He shall be executed as the law sentences him, 
and his body shall be delivered over to surgeons, and await the 
resurrection without a grave in our soil. I have shown him all the 
mercy which humanity can claim. 

Yours truly 

Henry A. Wise."^ 
Hon. F. Wood. 

This last threat Governor Wise thought better of later on.* 
Btit his purpose not to interfere with the court's decree, or to 
use his influence with the Legislature, was not to be changed. 
Two days after his answer to Fernando Wood, he wrote to 
Andrew Hunter, at Charlestown: "I wish you to understand, 
confidentially, that I will not reprieve or pardon one man 7iow 
after the letters I have rec'd from the North." ^^ After Brown's 
death, in a message to the Legislature of December 5, 1859, 
Governor Wise officially put on paper more elaborate reasons 
for his position.94 He admitted in this message, however, as 
to the raid, that, 

"causes and influences lie behind it more potent far than the little 
band of desperadoes who were sent ahead to kindle the sparks of a 

* Among the letters received by Governor Wise was one from Dr. Lewis A. 
Sayre, of New York, suggesting dissection as part of the punishment; and the 
following ghoulish note from a Virginia professor to Andrew Hunter is worthy of 
preservation: — 

Richmond, Nov. i, 1859. Dear Sir, — We desire, if Brown and his coadjutors 
are executed, to add their heads to the collection in our museum. If the transfer- 
ence of the bodies will not exceed a cost of five dollars each, we should also be glad 
to have them. This request will, of course, not interfere with any clemericy which 
it may be found desirable to extend to those convicted. Attention to this request 
will confer a great favor. 

A. E. Peticolas, M.D. 

Prof Anat at Med. 

College of Va. 

These two letters are respectively in the Tatham Collection and in the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society. 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 505 

general conflagration. . . . Indeed, if the miserable convicts were 
the only conspirators against our peace and safety, we might have 
forgiven their offences and constrained them only by the grace of 
pardon. But an entire social and sectional sympathy has incited 
their crimes and now rises in rebellion and insurrection, to the 
height of sustaining and justifying their enormity." 

Obviously, if the " miserable convicts " were merely the petty 
tools of a great and monstrotis "rebellion and insurrection," 
the Governor's flight of rhetoric to Fernando Wood was un- 
called for; it was then perfectly proper for Virginia to take 
cognizance in her actions of public sentiment elsewhere, and 
to be guided by her interpretation of it in her punishment of 
those Abolition "tools." It has never been considered im- 
politic for a State to have due regard for outside sentiment 
when that was, as Governor Wise insisted in the case of 
Virginia, menacing its very existence. 

As to the appeal to his magnanimity, the Governor said in 
this message: " I know of no magnanimity which is so in- 
humane, . . . which would turn felons like these, proud and 
defiant in their guilt, loose again on a border already torn by 
a fanatical and sectional strife which threatens the liberties 
of the white even more than it does the bondage of the black 
race." Then there was the question of making a martyr of 
Brown. To this the Governor's reply was: 

"To hang would be no more martyrdom than to incarcerate the 
fanatic. The sympathy would have asked on and on for liberation, 
and to nurse and soothe him whilst life lasted, in prison. His state of 
health would have been heralded weekly, as from a palace, visitors 
would have come affectedly reverent, to see the shorn felon at hard 
labor, the work of his hands would have been sought as holy relics, 
and his parti-colored dress would have become, perhaps, a uniform 
for the next band of marauders." * 

* Mr. F. E. Spinner, of Worcester, used to tell of one occasion when Governor 
Wise and Senator Mason heard Thaddeus Stevens, the Pennsylvania Congress- 
man, endorse Governor Wise's action. At the Relay House, the Southerners took 
seats opposite Mr. Spinner and Congressman Stevens. As the former related it: 
"They said things that displeased us. I said to Mr. Stevens that it was a pity that 
Brown had not been sentenced to prison for life, instead of being made a martyr 
by hanging. Mr. Stevens had evidently longed for an opportunity to give the 
two eminent Virginia statesmen a shot in return, and turned to me and said in a 
loud voice: ' No, sir, he ought to have been hung for attempting to capture Vir- 
ginia with a dozen white men, five negroes and an old cow.' ' Why, sir,' he said, 
'he ought to have taken at least thirty men to have conquered Virginia.' " 



5o6 JOHN BROWN 

■ A pertinent answer to this is that there was such a thing 
possible as solitary confinement, and that not every jail per- 
mits the recording of its prisoners' health or doings, or their 
being the object of pilgrimage. In brief, the Governor's logic 
is not convincing. After the lapse of fifty years, it still ap- 
pears bad tactics and policy to have made a martyr of John 
Brown, save on the theory that secession and war were in- 
evitable and might as well be hastened.* Nothing could so 
have solidified Northern sentiment just at that moment as 
John Brown on the scaffold; nor made men in that section 
who had, heretofore, refused to take sides, search their hearts 
and decide w^hether they were for or against human bondage. 
From that time, no one could get away from the slavery and, 
soon, the secession issue, try as he might. It is idle, of course, 
to expect that Governor Wise should have foreseen the John 
Brown song. Yet, afterwards, when leading his gallant troops 
against their conquerors from the North, the Governor might 
sometimes have wished that his enemies were not profiting so 
much by the mighty battle hymn in regard to John Brown's 
soul. For it sent them, thrilling and inspired, to many a bat- 
tlefield, as ready to die for freedom as had been the man whose 
name was on their lips. 

There was still one more reason for clemency urged on 
Brown's behalf — his alleged insanity. The despatch received 
on the second day of his trial by his counsel, Lawson Botts, 
read thus: 

Akron, Ohio, Thursday, 
Oct. 27, 1859. 

To C. J. Faulkner and Lawson Botts: 

John Brown, leader of the insurrection at Harper's Ferry, and 
several of his family, have resided in this county many years. In- 
sanity is hereditary in that family. His mother's sister died with it, 
and a daughter of that sister has been two years in a lunatic asylum. 
A son and daughter of his mother's brother have also been confined 
in the lunatic asylum, and another son of that brother is now insane 
and under close restraint. These facts can be conclusively proven 

* John Sherman, when Secretary of State, wrote December 27, 1897, to the 
Rev. Elijah B. Jones at Owatomia, Minn.: "It would have been wiser to have 
kept him [John Brown] in confinement, rather than to execute him as was done 
for his Virginia raid." This is the view of Judge Roger A. Pryor, a bellicose Vir- 
ginia Congressman at the time of John Brown's raid, later a gallant Confederate 
soldier, and long an eminent New York jurist. 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 507 

by witnesses residing here, who will doubtless attend the trial if 
desired. 

A. H. Lewis.'' 

Mr. Lewis was vouched for by the Akron telegraph operator 
who sent the message. On receiving it, Mr. Botts and Mr. 
Green, his associate, read it to Brown, who at once absolutely 
declined to avail himself of this possible means of escape from 
the hangman. Not even to save his life would he consent to 
have the sacrifices already made minimized, and his entire 
twenty years' war upon slavery written down as the mere 
mania of a lunatic. He informed his counsel that there was 
no insanity on his father's side, but admitted that there were 
repeated instances of mental derangement on his mother's 
side, that his first wife was similarly afflicted, and two of her 
sons (John Brown, Jr., and Frederick) at times. Some of the 
statements in the telegram he knew to be correct; others were 
new to him. Mr. Botts informed the court of John Brown's 
refusal to avail himself of the plea of insanity, and of his igno- 
rance that any effort was being made in Ohio along these 
lines until the despatch was read to him. As Mr. Botts con- 
cluded his statement, the prisoner, raising himself up on his 
couch, said : 

"I will add, if the Court will allow me, that I look upon it as a 
miserable artifice and pretext of those who ought to take a differ- 
ent course in regard to me, if they took any at all, and I view it 
with contempt more than otherwise. As I remarked to Mr. Green, 
insane persons, so far as my experience goes, have but little ability 
to judge of their own sanity; and if I am insane, of course I should 
think I know more than all the rest of the world. But I do not 
think so. I am perfectly unconscious of insanity, and I reject, so 
far as I am capable, any attempt to interfere in my behalf on that 
score." '' 

The matter did not, how^ever, rest here. On November 7, 
Mr. Grisw^old, of Brown's counsel, wrote to the Governor, 
enclosing a petition and affidavit from one Thompson, af- 
firming the charge of insanity, and added: 

"Whether any further effort will be made to obtain Brown's par- 
don, or a commutation of his sentence on the ground of insanity, I do 
not know, I am in communication with no person on this subject. 



5o8 JOHN BROWN 

But I avail myself of this occasion to say that my conviction is that, 
on questions connected with slavery and the liberation of the slave, 

1 • • >' 97 

he is msane. 

Governor Wise responded that a plea of insanity could be 
filed at any time before conviction or sentence,^^ and wrote 
an admirable letter to Dr. Stribling, Superintendent of the 
Lunatic Asylum of Staunton, Virginia, ordering him to pro- 
ceed to Charlestown and examine the prisoner, saying: "If 
the prisoner is insane he ought to be cured, and if not insane 
the fact ought to be vouched in the most reliable form, now 
that it is questioned under oath and by counsel since con- 
viction." ^^ 

Unfortunately, the impetuous Governor countermanded 
these instructions, and the letter was never sent. This was 
a genuine misfortune, for the word of so eminent an alienist 
would have done much to answer the question which has puz- 
zled men and will continue to puzzle some, as long as the story 
of John Brown is told. On the 23d of November, Governor 
Wise received in Washington, from George H. Hoyt himself, 
nineteen affidavits that, on the advice of Montgomery Blair, 
had been collected by him in Ohio.i^"^ The good friends and 
relatives there were not willing that Brown should go to the 
scaffold if they could prevent it. To save him, they gladly 
laid bare some sad family secrets. These affidavits varied, 
so far as John Brown himself was concerned, from statements 
that he was occasionally insane, of an "unbalanced mind," 
a monomaniac, to outright assertions that he had been clearly 
insane for the previous twenty-four years. But on the family 
record they all agreed. These generous admissions of nearest 
of kin proved that, aside from other cases of less serious de- 
rangement. Brown's grandmother on the maternal side, after 
lingering six years in hopeless insanity, had died insane; that 
of his grandmother's children, Brown's uncles and aunts, 
two sons and two daughters were intermittently insane, while 
a third daughter had died hopelessly lunatic; that Brown's 
only sister, her daughter and one of his brothers were at in- 
tervals deranged ; and that of six first cousins, two were occa- 
sionally mad, two had been discharged from the state luna- 
tic asylum after repeated commitments, while two more were 
at the time in close restraint, one of these being a hopeless 



GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 509 

case. This is a fearful record, and one surely grave enough 
to have warranted the employing of alienists to make certain 
that Justice, in her blindness, did not execute an irresponsi- 
ble man. 

But the Governor failed to act. It was then too late for the 
issue to be raised legally, for there was no procedure by which 
the question of sanity could be raised after the sentence had 
been confirmed by the Court of Appeals. Governor Wise 
had, moreover, personally reached a decision on the point, 
after repeatedly seeing and conversing with the prisoner to 
whom he owes so much of his fame. "As well as I can know 
the state of mind of any one," the Governor declared to the 
Virginia Legislature, 

" I know that he was sane, and remarkably sane, if quick and clear 
perception, if assumed rational premises and consecutive reasoning 
from them, if cautious tact in avoiding disclosures and in cover- 
ing conclusions and inferences, if memory and conception and 
practical common sense, and if composure and self-possession are 
evidence of a sound state of mind. He was more sane than his 
prompters and promoters, and concealed well the secret which made 
him seem to do an act of mad impulse, by leaving him without his 
backers at Harper's Ferry; but he did not conceal his contempt for 
the cowardice which did not back him better than with a plea of 
insanity, which he spurned to put in at his trial at Charlestown." 

No historian of John Brown can fail to take note of the facts 
in the affidavits, and to scrutinize the life of his subject in 
the light thus cast upon his inheritance from one line of his 
progenitors. If it could be roundly declared that he was par- 
tially or wholly deranged, it would be easy to explain away 
those of his acts which at times baffle an interpreter of this 
remarkable personality, — the Pottawatomie murders, for 
instance. But this cannot be done. Governor Wise was cor- 
rect in his estimate of John Brown's mentality; the final 
proof is the extraordinary series of letters written by him in 
jail after his doom was pronounced. No lunatic ever penned 
such elevated and high-minded, and such consistent epistles. 
If to be devoted to one idea, or to a single cause, is to be 
a monomaniac, then the world owes much of its progress 
toward individual and racial freedom to lunacy of this variety. 
If John Brown was insane on the subject of slavery, so were 



510 JOHN BROWN 

Lucre tia Mott and Lydia Maria Child, while Garrison and 
Phillips and Horace Greeley should never have been allowed 
to go at large. That their methods of advancing their joint 
cause differed from John Brown's violent ones, in no wise 
argues that he went beyond the bounds of sound reason in 
his efforts for freedom for the blacks. If John Brown was 
the victim of an idee fixe, so was Martin Luther, and so were 
all the martyrs to freedom of faith. But, examining his record 
day by day, weighing all the actions of a life of great activity, 
and reading the hundreds of letters from his pen which have 
survived to this hour, the conclusion is inevitable that, how- 
ever bad his judgment at times, however wild the planless 
assault on Harper's Ferry, John Brown himself had escaped 
the family taint, — and this despite the kindly affidavits of 
those who wished to save him from the gallows. Moreover, 
while lunatics have often for a time imposed their will upon 
weaker intellects, persuaded them that fancied wrongs were 
real, and nerved them to acts of violence, John Brown lived 
too long and too intimately with many men to have been 
able to mislead them always. The paranoiac invariably be- 
trays himself at last. But the man who sacrifices business 
prospects, a quiet orderly life, his family's happiness, and 
the lives of himself and his children, in a crusade which the 
world has since declared to have been righteous as to its 
object, cannot, because of his devotion to that purpose, be 
adjudged a maniac — else asylums for the insane have played 
too small a part in the world's history. Dr. Starry, the gallant 
physician of Harper's Ferry, said, years after the raid, that 
such devotion as Brown's followers had for him he. Dr. Starry, 
had never beheld before or since. "They perfectly worshipped 
the ground the old fellow trod on." ^o^ The hard-headed, able 
Americans, like Stevens, Kagi, Cook and Gill, who lived with 
John Brown month in and month out and were ready to die 
with him, worshipped no lunatic. 



CHAPTER XIV 
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 

Many of them veterans of a hundred frontier roils or dan- 
gerous anti-slavery undertakings, it was not to be expected 
that John Brown's friends and supporters would see him go 
to his death at the hands of the assaulted Virginians without 
lifting a finger in his behalf. No sooner was he safely in jail 
in Charlestown, and his recovery from his wounds certain, 
than plotting for a rescue began. To the Kansas Free State 
fighters, capture by Border Ruffian forces or incarceration in 
a Southern prison did not imply that they were beyond hope 
of escape. At the hour of Brown's raid. Dr. John Doy, who 
had been rescued from the St. Joseph, Missouri, jail jufet in 
time to avoid serving five years in the penitentiary at Jeffer- 
son, was touring the North and lecturing on slavery as he 
had found it. What Kansans had done, Kansans could do 
again, and Massachusetts men, too. 

The first to move were John W. Le Barnes and Thomas 
Wentworth Higginson. The latter's interest was to have 
been expected, because of his militant record. Other clergy- 
men might feel scruples about taking up arms when wearing 
the garb of the church and teaching the doctrines of the Prince 
of Peace, but Mr. Higginson had none. He sympathized not 
at all with the Garrison school of non-resistant Abolitionists, 
and he had unbounded physical and moral courage. For in- 
stance, on May 26, 1854, Mr. Higginson and a sturdy negro 
were the first of the men who broke down the door of the Bos- 
ton court-house, in a brave but vain attempt to save Anthony 
Burns, a fugitive slave, from being returned to slavery. Mr. 
Higginson, unarmed as he -was, attacked the policemen and 
deputies within the jail. As he did so, a shot rang out and 
one of the deputies fell dead, — the first Massachusetts man 
to lose his life in the contest over slavery. ^ 

As already related, Mr. Le Barnes engaged George H. Hoyt 
to go to Harper's Ferry, ostensibly as counsel, but really as 



512 JOHN BROWN 

a spy, to see if the prison could be stormed and Brown and 
his fellow prisoners set free. As soon as Hoyt had obtained 
access to John Brown, he revealed to him the plan of rescue 
then under way in Massachusetts, and urged him to cooper- 
ate to the fullest extent. But in the tone of command which 
had never permitted debate on the plains of Kansas, John 
Brown made it clear to Hoyt that he would lend himself to 
no scheme of rescue. That same night, October 28, Hoyt 
wrote to his employer that Brown "positively refused his 
consent to any such plan;"^ and what he said to Hoyt, the 
prisoner repeated on the day of his sentence to Judge Thomas 
Russell, of Boston, and Mrs. Russell, and later on to his old 
Free State friend, S. C. Pomeroy, subsequently Senator from 
Kansas.^ The chimney in Brown's prison-room was enormous; 
two men could easily have got up or down it. Jurist as he 
was, Judge Russell looked at it and groaned: "Two good 
Yankees could get these men out and away so easily!" But 
Brown was "calm and at peace;" his words "measured and 
quiet;" the longings of his visitors kindled no response in 
kind.^ Besides his vision of what his death would mean to 
his cause, he felt under moral obligation to his jailer, Cap- 
tain John Avis, for many kindnesses received. To him he had 
already given his pledge not to attempt to escape.^ 

His positive prohibition, conveyed through Hoyt, did not, 
however, check the ardor of his friends. Le Barnes, F. B. San- 
born, James Redpath, R. J. Hinton and T. W. Higginson 
kept up their plotting until November 28, Higginson vainly 
hoping that, since Brown's sentence had not been commuted, 
he might change his mind about desiring aid.^ Even a second 
and more emphatic warning from Hoyt failed to deter them. 
Writing on October 30 to Le Barnes, the young lawyer said : 

" There is no chance of his [Brown's] ultimate escape; there is no- 
thing but the most unmitigated failure, & the saddest consequences 
which it is possible to conjure, to ensue upon an attempt at rescue. 
The county all around is guarded by armed patrols & a large body 
of troops are constantly under arms. If you hear anything about 
such an attempt, for Heaven's sake do not fail to restrain the enter- 
prise. 

In his ardor for a rescue, Mr. Higginson bethought himself 
of the grief-stricken family at North Elba, and decided to 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 513 

induce Mrs. Brown to visit her husband and urge him to give 
his consent to an attempt to free him. This he was successful 
in doing,8 Mrs^ Brown left North Elba in his company on 
November 2, and went direct to Boston, where funds were 
found to forward her to Harper's Ferry by way of Philadel- 
phia, from which place she was escorted to Baltimore by J. 
Miller McKim, a leading Philadelphia Abolitionist.^ As soon, 
however, as Brown learned that his wife was on the way, 
he telegraphed to Mr. Higginson through George Sennott^" 
not to let her come.* She was finally reached by telegram at 
Baltimore, on the morning of November 8, just as she was 
about to take a Harper's Ferry train, ^^ and there ended this 
effort to move from his purpose a man who was as impregnable 
as Gibraltar when his mind was made up. Whether Brown 
had received an inkling of his wife's real purpose is not clear. 
He wrote thus to Mr. Higginson, in explanation of Mr. Sen- 
nott's telegram, on the 9th of November: 

If my wife were to come here just now it would only tend to dis- 
tract her mind ten fold; and would only add to my affliction; and 
can not possibly do me any good. It will also use up the scanty means 
she has to supply Bread & cheap but comfortable clothing, fuel, &c 
for herself & children through the winter. Do persuade her to re- 
main at home for a time (at least) till she can learn further from me. 
She will receive a thousand times the consolation at home that she 
can possibly find elsewhere. I have just written her there & will 
write her constantly. Her presence here would deepen my affliction 
a thousand fold. I beg of her to be calm and submissive ; & not to go 
wild on my account. I lack /or nothing & was feeling quite cheerful; 
before I heard she talked of coming on — I ask her to compose her 
mind & to remain quiet till the last of this month ; out of pity to me. 
I can certainly judge better in the matter than any one else. My 
warmest thanks to yourself and all other kind friends. 

God bless you all. Please send this line to my afflicted wife by first 
possible conveyance. 

Your Friend in truth 

John Brown.^^ 

George L. Stearns, of Boston, was the first to turn to Kansas 
for aid. He wrote immediately after the raid to Charles Jen- 
nison and James Stewart, two of the boldest' "jayhawkers" 
in Kansas, urging them to help Brown escape, and author- 

* Mr. Sennott's message read: "Mr. Brown says for God's sake don't let Mrs. 
Brown come. Send her word by telegraph wherever she is." 



514 JOHN BROWN 

izing them to draw on him for funds if there was anything 
they could do.^^ They do not seem to have acted. Captain 
James Montgomery and Silas C. Soule, who had played an 
important part in the rescue of Dr. John Doy, are erroneously 
believed to have come East promptly and looked over the 
field. But, as Soul^ did not meet Montgomery until he pre- 
sented a letter of introduction from James H. Lane on De- 
cember 27, it is obvious that they could not have been East 
together in November. It is certain that women figured 
in the Kansas plans, as well as in the Massachusetts one. A 
Miss Mary Partridge, of a fighting Free State family of Linn 
County, whose brother George was killed at Osawatomie 
while fighting under Brown, was selected to visit him in his 
cell at Charlestown, to convey information of the plans if it 
could be given to the captive in no other way. Miss Partridge 
was to throw her arms around Brown's neck and, while em- 
bracing him most affectionately, was to get into his mouth a 
billet giving the plan of campaign and the time of the attempt. 
Miss Partridge was ready and willing to go to Virginia, but 
Brown's attitude and the physical and financial difficulties 
in the way relieved her of the necessity of venturing to Har- 
per's Ferry. 1* 

To Lysander Spooner, an active Abolitionist of Boston, 
belongs the credit of devising, early in November, an au- 
dacious scheme of retaliation upon the South for the sen- 
tencing to death of John Brown, which, had it been carried 
into execution, would, as Higginson put it at the time, have 
terrified the South as much as the Harper's Ferry affair. ^^ 
It was nothing less than a plan to kidnap Governor Wise 
some evening in Richmond; to carry him aboard a sea-going 
tug, and hold him either on the high seas, or in some secret 
Northern place, as hostage for the safety of Brown. That 
so buccaneering a scheme, worthy of the imagination of a 
Marryat or a Cooper, should have been seriously considered 
by sober-minded Boston men of the middle of the nineteenth 
century, shows clearly how rapidly the "irrepressible con- 
flict" was approaching. Their passionate hatred of slavery 
had led them to sanction Brown's armed attack upon it; their 
disappointment and grief over his failure and capture made 
no scheme of revenge too wild for their consideration. They 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 515 

actually planned, in time of profound peace, to steal by night 
into the capitol of a friendly State and carry off its Chief 
Executive; and there is good reason to believe that dauntless 
spirits like those of Le Barnes and Higginson would have set 
the undertaking afoot, had it been possible to raise the large 
sum of money necessary. They were willing to imitate Brown 
and "carry the war into Africa;" if the government was not 
ready to begin war on the South for the freedom of the slaves, 
there was no hesitation on their part. Looking back on it 
now, Mr. Higginson says truly that "it seems almost incredi- 
ble that any condition of things should have turned honest 
American men into conscientious law-breakers." ^^ Only a 
few people were able, in the heat of the moment, to realize 
that this lawless spirit was as clear an indication of the im- 
pending upheaval as were those acts of lawlessness like the 
Boston Tea-Party and the burning of the schooner Gaspee, 
which preceded the Revolution. 

Spooner first broached the Wise plot to Le Barnes in Bos- 
ton. ^^ Recourse was had, before the middle of November, to 
Higginson, who, having been for some years a stockholder 
in a yacht, the Flirt, kept in commission to aid incoming 
fugitive slaves and circumvent slave-catchers, ^^ was not with- 
out sympathy for a maritime adventure. Spooner was able 
to report to him within a week that Le Barnes had discovered 
a reliable man "who will undertake to find the men, a pilot, 
and a boat, for the Richmond expedition, if the necessary 
money can be had. . . . Will you not come down at once, 
and help to move men here to furnish the money. . . . We 
can do nothing without you. Do not fail to come."i^ By No- 
vember 22, Le Barnes wrote 20 that he had no doubt that the 
arrangements could be made, "it is the money that is uncer- 
tain." His agent was in the shipping business and could fur- 
nish the tug and crew needed without causing comment, par- 
ticularly if it were offered for sale at Richmond, because tugs 
were just then in great demand there. Other details he set 
forth as follows: 

"Tug will cost $5000 to $7000, to steam 15 to 18 knots an hour. 
There is only one gunboat on the station, (whether in the Bay or 
not, is not precisely known.) But this makes only 13 knots; & there 
is nothing else as fast in those waters. The pilot knows all the 



5i6 JOHN BROWN 

rivers of that region thoroughly. The expedition would cost ten to 
fifteen thousand dollars. $10,000 wd be necessary to start with, with 
more, (say proceeds of sale of boat) promised in case of success. 
This, if it were necessary to hire hands. If the men volunteered, 
the expenses, aside from the security of the boat would not exceed 
$2000." 

But Le Barnes declared that he would not go himself, and 
did not "wush any of our men led into it," although if a safe 
agreement could be reached with ''professional men," he 
would make the arrangements. With money the thing could 
be done, but the money was the rub. Where could it be had? 
He himself had been to see ''W. P." [Wendell Phillips], who 
was in favor, "if our men wall go." " W. I." [Bowditch] would 
contribute to the project if it was undertaken, but "H. I." 
[Bowditch] was opposed. Le Barnes himself was impressed 
with the fact that ''success would be brilliant — defeat fatally 
inglorious." He had, moreover, doubts as to whether the suc- 
cessful kidnapping of Wise would save John Brown. It was, 
after all, the judge who issued the warrant of death and 
saw to its exectition, not the Governor. Still, if nothing else 
could be done, he w^as for attempting the scheme. 21 Grad- 
ually, however, the hopelessness of raising the money became 
patent, and upon this obstacle the scheme was wrecked. Le 
Barnes was one of the last to give it up; but gradually he 
devoted himself to the alternative plan of a deliberate over- 
land invasion of Charlestow^n. This he was personally quite 
willing to join." 

Some German-born lovers of liberty in New^ York, w^ho had 
fought tyranny in their native land, were brought together 
in a meeting on November 22,23 ^ind agreed to take part in 
an attack on the prison. In a short time, "a hundred or more " 
men w^ere reported to the Boston conspirators as ready to go 
as a reinforcement to the Ohioans w^ho, so rumor said, were 
preparing to move on Charlestown under John Brown, Jr. 
But if it should prove that there were no Ohio men ready to 
lead, only "from 15 to 20 or 25" were prepared to follow Le 
Barnes, Hinton and the Kansas leaders. ^^ By Sunday, Novem- 
ber 27, the plan was to rendezvous some distance from Charles- 
town, to make a cross-country rush on that town, and, after 
freeing the prisoners, to seize the horses of the cavalry com- 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 517 

panics and escape. The attack was to be either on Wednesday, 
November 30, or on December 2, the day of the execution, 
"at the hour," and Le Barnes reported from New York that 
the men were confident of success, "strange as it may seem 
to us."" Dr. Howe suggested that they be armed with "Or- 
sinl" bombs and hand-grenades. In Heu of artillery. With 
these weapons he felt sure they would terrify the Virginia 
chivalry on guard in Charlestown.^^ 

Again It became a question merely of funds. The rescuers 
wanted one hundred dollars apiece, and an agreement that 
the survivors would be provided for in places of safety, and 
that the families of all would be taken care of. For this pur- 
pose, fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars was needed by 
Tuesday morning the 29th, and five hundred or a thousand 
dollars the day after. Le Barnes demanded also that a definite 
promise be sent on the following day." James Redpath had 
been previously selected to go to Ohio to ascertain just what 
was on foot there. But he had delayed his departure, and on 
the day Le Barnes wrote this ultimatum in regard to funds, 
and added, "It Is for you In Boston to say 'go' or 'stay,' " 
George H. Hoyt, fresh from his achievements as Brown's 
counsel, arrived In Boston from the Western Reser\^e. He 
reported that nothing whatever was on foot in Ohio. The 
next day, discouraged by Hoyt's news, for he had counted on 
Ohio's stirring, and being unable to raise the needed funds, 
Sanborn in Boston gave up the undertaking and wired to Le 
Barnes to return. This the latter did after telegraphing to 
HIgglnson, "Object abandoned." Sanborn wrote with a heavy 
heart to that militant clergyman: "So I suppose we must 
give up all hope of saving our old friend." ^s 

It must not be thought that the Virginia authorities were 
without a belief that there was plotting going on. In his mes- 
sage to the Legislature after the execution. Governor Wise 
said: " I did not remove the prisoners further into the interior, 
because I was determined to show no apprehension of a res- 
cue ; and if the jail of Jefferson had been on the line of the State, 
they would have been kept there, to show that they could 
be kept anywhere chosen in our limits." ^^ But for all this 
bravado after the execution, there is plenty of evidence, be- 
sides the extraordinary assembling of troops around Brown's 



5i8 JOHN BROWN 

scaffold, to show Wise's anxiety and that of Andrew Hunter. 
Every mail brought to them or to John Brown, whose letters 
they carefully examined and withheld If they saw fit, warn- 
ings, some more or less fantastic, of an expedition or plan. 
Many were anonymous, others signed by Southern sympa- 
thizers In the North, and still others were plainly written for 
the sole purpose of alarming and deceiving Governor Wise 
and the military.^'' From Zanesville, Ohio, "T. A. B." wrote 
that he had seen "between 30 & 36 men, all armed with Colts 
Six Shooters & a Species of home made Bowie knife, well 
calculated to do Exicution," who were to cross the Ohio near 
" CIsterville " with two hundred and seventy others and arrive 
at Harper's Ferry December i. "Harrlsburg" wrote from 
Harrlsburg, Pennsylvania, of a force of armed men who were 
to leave there In time to free Brown on the day of execution. 
The United States marshal at Cleveland forwarded a letter 
from North Bloomfield, Ohio, which reported that John 
Brown, Jr., had boasted that "9000 desperate men" were In 
readiness, and that his father would not be hanged. "Henry" 
wrote from Boston to Brown, In an easily read cipher, that 
"twenty of them left this morning and thirty-three start 
Thursday. They will bring you with them or die." Phila- 
delphia reported five thousand men armed with "Pike's 
rifles" and four cannon, and New York twenty-five hundred 
men who were to attack Charlestown on December i , — a 
little late, apparently, because, on the day before, eight thou- 
sand desperate men from Detroit, sworn to rescue Brown 
or die, and more than "armed to the teeth," were to fire ten 
shots a minute at the jail guards from their new-style carbines. 
Some of these missives Hunter endorsed, "Contemptible 
nonsense," others he marked, "Consider." To John Brown 
himself the threatening letters caused nothing but annoyance. 
"He protests against them," reported the special correspond- 
ent of the Richmond Despatch on November 11, "and feels 
unwilling to believe that they proceed from his own friends." 
To the correspondent of the Tribune he thus expressed him- 
self on November 4: "I do not know that I ought to encour- 
age any attempt to save my life. I am not sure that It would 
not be better for me to die at this time." * He told one of his 

* Henry Ward Beecher had said five days before: " Let no man pray that Brown 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 519 

guards, not long before his execution, that his friends would 
surely have attempted his rescue in the first few weeks, had 
they known how small a guard was on duty, but that he hoped 
and trusted no effort would then be made.^^ But Governor 
Wise actually thought it advisable to turn over to the mili- 
tary a well-written letter from Lewisburg, Union County, 
Pennsylvania, telling of the organization of "The Noble Sons 
of Liberty," numbering about five hundred and led by "Capt. 
James Smelly, alias Limber Jim, the ultra-abolitionist." Its 
members were to drop into Charlestown and adjacent places 
by ones and twos, and then on a given signal storm the jail. 
This was one of the letters that led to the extending of the 
pickets well outside of the town. Some of the sentries were 
a full mile from their quarters, and it took an hour and forty 
minutes to post the guard. ^^ Under Mr. Hunter's advice, 
the old Southern system of mounted patrols was established 
in every precinct of the county. ^^ 

Before that took place, however, there had been a bad scare 
at Harper's Ferry, on October 26, the superintendent of the 
arsenal having received "reliable information" that an at- 
tempt at rescue might be made at night by parties from New 
York and Pennsylvania. President Garrett, of the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railroad, was not willing to run any risks, and him- 
self called out a company of Maryland militia, the United 
Guards of Frederick, who reached Harper's Ferry fifteen 
strong that evening, with a promise that the rest of the com- 
pany would arrive in the morning. "There is a strong guard 
on duty," reported that evening to Mr. Garrett his Master 
of Transportation, W. P. Smith, "and I am ordered to 'halt' 
at all points as I move about in the storm and darkness." 
But he added: "The feeling of uncertain dread is very strong, 
and there surely ought to be full and well-organized reliance 
[reserve?] to restore confidence." ^^ That the Charlestown au- 
thorities were ready to take extreme measures appears from 
a despatch of Colonel J. Lucius Davis, a West Point graduate, 
with a long, flowing beard and of otherwise curious appear- 

be spared. Let Virginia make him a martyr. Now, he has only blundered. His soul 
was noble; his work miserable. But a cord and a gibbet would redeem all that, and 
round up Brown's failure with a heroic success." See New York Herald of Octo- 
ber 31 and November 22. When John Brown read this, he wrote opposite it the 
single word "good." 



520 JOHN BROWN 

ance, who was the immediate commander of the troops. Tele- 
graphing to the Secretary of the Commonwealth November 2, 
Colonel Davis said: "We are ready for them. If attack be 
made, the prisoners will be shot by the inside guards." ^^ 

To add to the nervousness of the authorities, there oc- 
curred in the neighborhood of Charlestown a number of fires, 
all of them doubtless accidental. They continued through 
November, instances being the burning of the barn and 
stock-yards of Mr. Walter Shirley, three miles from Charles- 
town, loss four thousand dollars, and also those of George H. 
Tate and John Burns, all three of whom had been on the jury 
that decided Brown's fate.^^ Judge Lucas's haystack, burned 
about this time, was but one of many that lit up the heav- 
ens. A shot fired under his window, another night, led to 
the belief that the judge had been marked for assassination, 
and induced the mayor, Thomas C. Green, on November 12, 
to order the removal from Charlestown of all strangers who 
could not give a satisfactory account of themselves. Among 
those forced to leave on that day were George H. Hoyt, who 
was, however, ready to go, as he had finished his legal work 
for Brown, and a representative ol Frajtk Leslie's Illustrated 
Paper, who was charged with the grave offence of being a 
correspondent of the New York Tribune.^'' But the fires con- 
tinued to be recorded in almost every issue of the Richmond 
papers from November 12 on. The resultant dread and ner- 
vousness of the citizens were intensified by repeated false 
alarms, some of them given for drill purposes by Colonel 
Davis, until the cry of wolf no longer excited people. ^'^* 

But the return home of an excited native of Charlestown, 
for some time previously a resident of Kansas, with a report 
that five hundred Kansans were planning a rescue and were 
already on their way, did thoroughly frighten the town. This 
man, a certain Smith Crane, told terrilDle tales of the band 
of desperadoes who, in Kansas, always had rescued Brown, 
and would again, and reported overhearing a conversation 
in Bellair, Ohio, — whence he had just come, — in which 
conspirators had detailed their plans to come in force and 

* Colonel Davis reported on November 19 that "the majority [of citizens] 
think the recent fires made by local spy companies forming everywhere," — which 
illustrates clearly the panic then prevailing. — Telegram to Governor Wise. — 
Original in Mr. Edwin Tatham's collection. 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 521 

rescue the prisoner. Curiously enough, Andrew Hunter re- 
ceived the next day a telegram from Marshal Johnson, of 
Cleveland, saying that a thousand men were arming there. 
The coincidence seemed to confirm Crane's stories, and cre- 
ated much alarm for the time being. Mr. Hunter himself 
was convinced of their truth. ^^ 

That all of this had its effect on Governor Wise's nerves 
appears clearly in his letter of November 16 to Andrew Hun- 
ter, which has only recently been brought to light: 

Richmond, V^^, Nov. 16"*, 1859. 
My dear Sir, — Information from every quarter leads to the 
conviction that there is an organized plan to harrass our whole 
slave-border at every point. Day is the very time to commit arson 
with the best chance ag*^ detection. No light shines, nor smoke 
shows in daylight before the flame is off & up past putting out. The 
rascal too escapes best by day; he sees best whether he is not seen, 
and best how to avoid persons pursuing. I tell you those Devils 
are trained in all the Indian arts of predatory war. They come, one 
by one, tivo by hvo, in open day, and make you stare that the thing 
be attempted as it was done. But on the days of execution what is to 
become of the borders? Have you tho't of that? 5 or 10,000 people 
flock into Chastown & leave homesteads unguarded ! When then 
but most burnings to take place? To prevent this you must get 
all your papers in Jeff: Berk: & Fred'' & Morgan & Hamp: to beg 
the people to stay at home & keep guard. Again a promiscuous 
crowd of women & children would hinder troops terribly if an emeute 
of rescue be made; and if our own people will only shoulder arms 
that day & keep thus distinct from strangers the guards may be 
prompt to arrest & punish any attempt. I have ordered 200 minie 
muskets to be sent to Charlestown at once with fixed amt" and the 
CoP of Berkely, Jeff: & Fred : to order regt^ to be ready at a moment. 
I shall order 400 men under arms. Then, ought there to be more 
than one day of execution? Judge P. ought to have thought of this, 
but he did n't. If C* AppP dont decide before 2°'* Dec' I 'II hang 
Brown. If they do & sustain sentence will it not be best to post- 
pone his ext° with the rest. He ought to be hung between two ne- 
groes & there ought n't to be two days of excitement. Again it gives 
Legislature the opportunity of uniting with Executive in hanging 
Brown. Another question. Ought / to be there ? It might possibly 
be necessary in order to proc: M. law. Say to Col. Davis that I 
have ordered him to act as Commissary Gen^ for all the troops in 
Jefferson and he must remain & act until we are through. The 
Gov* may pay out of contingent fund & I gave M''. Brown the forms 
of U. S. arm}^ t'other day, shall of course call on Gen' Assembly 
for an appropriation the first week. The guards must be kept up 



522 JOHN BROWN 

until 1 6*^ Dec'. Watch Harper's Ferry people. Watch, I say, and 
I thought watch when there. Gerritt Smith is a stark madman, no 
doubt! Gods, what a moral, what a lesson. Whom the Gods wish 
to make mad they first set to setting others to destroying. . . . 

Yrs. truly 

Henry A. Wise."" 
A. Hunter, Esq. 

Another outbreak of fear at Harper's Ferry, two days after 
Governor Wise wrote this letter, led him hastily to call out 
four hundred men in Richmond and Petersburg, and go with 
them in person, on November 20, to that place and to Charles- 
town, which, in great excitement, were momentarily "ex- 
pecting from one to two hundred armed men from the West 
to rescue Brown." "Send me 500 men armed and equipped, 
instanter. A large body are approaching from Wheeling, 
armed with pikes and revolvers. Pardon haste" — tele- 
graphed Colonel J. Lucius Davis to Governor Wise. But 
this was too much for that excitable official, who replied: 
"Be cautious. Commit no mistake to-night. Men will march 
to-morrow morning."^' 

One hundred and fifty more soldiers reached Harper's 
Ferry with cannon on November 21, but they were destined 
to stay only a short time, for the impulsive Governor ordered 
them back that night. The railroad men were at a loss to 
know why the Governor had called out so many men, but 
thought he "must be in possession of information — we have 
not — to justify him." All except one company were on their 
way back again by the 22d. Four days later, Governor Wise 
began the concentration of troops for the execution, and with 
it came the end of what may truthfully be called the reign of 
terror in Charlestown and Harper's Ferry. ^" 

Andrew Hunter's state of mind was considerably less fever- 
ish, but he afterwards admitted his genuine alarm lest the 
none too strong jail be attempted, and urged every possible 
precaution as the day of execution approached, — even to 
the extent of being ready to tear up the railroad tracks. "^^ 
Eight days in advance of the event upon which the interest 
of the nation was concentrated. Governor Wise sent the fol- 
lowing orders to Major-General William B. Taliaferro, then 
the commander of the troops in succession to Colonel Davis, 
after promising more soldiers: 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 523 

"... keep full guard on the line of frontier from Martinsburg to 
Harper's Ferry, on the day of 2d Dec. Warn the inhabitants to arm 
and keep guard and patrol on that day and for days beforehand. 
These orders are necessary to prevent seizure of hostages. Warn 
the inhabitants to stay away and especially to keep the women 
and children at home. Prevent all strangers, and especieilly all par- 
ties of strangers from proceeding to Charlestown on 2nd Dec''. To 
this end station a guard at Harper's Ferry sufficient to control crowds 
on the cars from East and West. Let mounted men, except one or 
two companies, remain on guard at the outposts, and keep one 
or two for the purpose of keeping the crowd clear of the outer line 
of military on the day of execution. Form two concentric squares 
around the gallows, and have strong guard at the jail and for 
escort to execution. Let no crowd be near enough to the prisoner 
to hear any speech he may attempt. Allow no more visitors to be 
admitted into the jail."" 

Greater precatitions could hardly have been taken had a 
grave state of war existed, with a menacing and active enemy. 

Not content with the militia forces which he could and 
did assemble, including the cadets from the Virginia Military 
Institute at Lexington, Virginia, one of whose commanders 
w^as Professor T. J. Jackson, later famous as "Stonewall" 
Jackson, Governor Wise induced President Buchanan again 
to send Colonel Robert E. Lee to Harper's Ferry. He arrived 
there on November 30, and under his command were 264 
artillerymen from Fort Monroe, to guard the bridges and town 
until after the execution. In his appeal to the President, on 
November 25, to keep the peace between the States, Gov- 
ernor Wise stated that he had Information "specific enough 
to be reliable" which convinced him that "an attempt will 
be made to rescue the prisoners, and If that fails, then to seize 
citizens of this State as hostages and victims In case of exe- 
cution." He himself had called out one thousand mlHtla, 
and If necessary he would "call out the whole available force 
of the State to carry Into effect the sentence of our laws on the 
2d and i6th proximo." He added that "places In Maryland, 
Ohio and Pennsylvania have been occupied as depots and 
rendezvous by these desperadoes, unobstructed by guards 
or otherwise to Invade this State, and we are kept In continual 
apprehension of outrages from fire and rapine on our bor- 
ders." 4^ How unfounded In fact these allegations were, now 
appears clearly. The most careful search falls to reveal, in 



524 JOHN BROWN 

Ohio or elsewhere, any proof that there were actual conspira- 
cies of would-be rescuers, save those elsewhere described. In 
insisting that desperadoes had actually occupied rendezvous 
in three States, Governor Wise w^as merely taking counsel of 
his fears, and of his largely anonymous informants. Never- 
theless, he sent copies of his letter to the Governors of those 
States, and by arming and showing his great anxiety, he be- 
trayed to his, for the greater part unknown, correspondents 
that they had accomplished their end, — the terrifying of the 
great State of Virginia. 

Naturally, President Buchanan, while willing to send Colo- 
nel Lee to guard United States property at Harper's Ferry, 
characterized Governor Wise's beliefs as "almost incredible," 
and pointed out that he had no right or power to keep peace 
between the States as suggested. Governor Hicks, of Marj^- 
land, was skeptical, but ready to take some civil and military 
measures to cooperate. Governor Packer, of Pennsylvania, 
correctly characterized the information received by Gov- 
ernor Wise as "utterly and entirely without foundation," 
and reminded him sharply that Pennsylvania had done and 
would do her duty. Salmon P. Chase, Governor of Ohio, 
replied that he had heard nothing of any desperadoes assem- 
bling in Ohio until he received Governor Wise's letter. In 
answer to Wise's threats that Virginia troops might have to 
pursue rescuers into Ohio, Governor Chase gave to Governor 
Wise the information that the laws of the United States pre- 
scribed the mode in which persons charged with crime es- 
caping into Ohio might be demanded and surrendered ; and he 
added that Ohio under no circumstances would consent to the 
invasion of her territory by armed bodies from other States. ^^ 

Hunter and Wise did not cease their emergency prepara- 
tions, after making their military arrangements. Through 
the former, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was induced 
to take the most elaborate precautions. A canny Boston 
Yankee, Josiah Perham, had asked the railroad for reduced 
rates for one or two thousand sight-seers, to whom he wished 
to show Brown on the scaffold, and then the sights of Wash- 
ington at the time of the opening of Congress. He asserted 
that he had moved two hundred thousand people in the nine 
previous years without accident and without complaint that 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 525 

"any of them did not behave well." But under Hunter's ad- 
vice the Baltimore and Ohio declined to profit by this oppor- 
tunity to make money, on account of the "peculiar relation 
of the criminals to a portion of the Eastern community and 
the great liability to at least an unpleasant excitement on the 
occasion," — so Mr. Perham was informed. All excursions 
or movements of any number of people as a body were for- 
bidden. Local passenger traffic from the adjoining towns to 
Harper's Ferry and Charlestown was practically suspended 
on the day before the execution, no tickets being sold save 
to persons well known to the agents. Every intending pas- 
senger was urged to travel on another day, as every one 
insufficiently provided with a pass faced "arrest and impris- 
onment on attempting to stop at Martinsburg or Harper's 
Ferry." " As Mr. Hunter avers that four Congressmen who 
were desirous of seeing Brown hanged, and were escorted by a 
well-known citizen of Harper's Ferry, were nevertheless jailed 
on suspicion as soon as they reached Charlestown, this warn- 
ing to travellers was plainly well worth obeying. ^^ Even inno- 
cent passengers were liable to arrest and removal from trains, 
as in the case of three Baltimoreans arrested at Martinsburg 
on November 29. From as far west as Wheeling, no one 
could go east on December I or 2 without a certificate of good 
character from a station agent, and not more than sixty cer- 
tificates could be issued. Conductors were ordered to tele- 
graph in detail about their trains to W. P. Smith, the Master 
of Transportation. That official even asked aid in New York, 
for he excitedly telegraphed, as late as November 30, to J. P. 
Jackson, Vice-President of the New Jersey Railroad Com- 
pany, begging for news: ^^ 

"Great alarm exists here from expectations of large forces of 
desperadoes from North, East and West, to attempt rescue of Vir- 
ginia prisoners. Will you favor us by promptly despatching any 
information you may have respecting parties who may be of this 
character taking your trains for the South, and also advise us per- 
sonally if any unusual party of unknown men start for this direc- 
tion." 

In brief, there was voluntary enforcement of martial law, 
and the whole countryside behaved as if in a state of siege. 
When the execution came, there was not the slightest dis- 



526 JOHN BROWN 

turbance of the peace of any kind, either at Charles town or 
on any part of Governor Wise's embattled frontier. 

Not unnaturally, that Executive was severely criticised 
for his military display and its costliness. Part of the Vir- 
ginia and Maryland press denounced it as unnecessary, and 
credited it to Wise's alleged desire to make political capital 
out of the raid.^° But a study of contemporary reports of 
conditions at Charlestown, and of the Virginia press, makes 
it plain that Wise would have been justified in calling out a 
strong military force, had he not been himself so convinced 
that hordes of desperadoes were about to descend upon his 
State. He owed it to the citizens of Charlestown not merely 
to safeguard the prisoners, but also to protect the town from 
the bloodshed of even an unsuccessful attempt at a rescue. 
There was, moreover, extraordinary popular excitement 
throughout the Union, and if this were in itself not excuse 
enough, the weakness of the South's "peculiar institution" 
would have furnished it. The Free State men in Kansas had 
not only made slavery impossible in their Territory, but had 
endangered it in Missouri by their raids into the State, and 
their helping hand to any slave who came over the border 
in search of freedom. From the Southern point of view, it 
would seem to have been good policy to show the power of 
the sovereign State of Virginia to defend her own when at- 
tacked, and to punish those who violated her laws. Certainly, 
Mr. Hunter, in his article in the New Orleans Times-Democrat 
of September 5, 1887, reviewing the raid and Brown's trial, 
makes out a strong case for the force employed. The report 
of the Legislature's special committee, headed by Alexander 
H. H. Stuart, unreservedly sustained Governor Wise, in the 
following language: 

"The testimony before the committee amply vindicates the con- 
duct of the Executive in assembling a strong military force at the 
scene of excitement; and the promptness and energy with which 
he discharged his duty, merit, and doubtless will receive the com- 
mendation of the Legislature and people of the State." ^^ 

It must be admitted, of course, that Wise still had political 
ambitions, although his term as Governor was about expiring : 
for a few months later, he was wilHng to have his name pre- 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 527 

sented to the National Democratic Convention at Charleston, 
South CaroHna, provided the Virginia State delegation were 
a unit for his nomination.^- But in his treatment of the mil- 
itary situation, the politician disappears behind the Governor. 
His bombastic and excitable way of dealing with it was due to 
his fears, and also to his nature. His biographer, Barton H. 
Wise, a relative, has characterized him as "largely a creature 
of impulse," of a " remarkably mercurial " temperament, with 
a "temper exceptionally excitable and his bump of combative- 
ness developed in an extraordinary degree." ^^ That Hunter 
and the Governor realized that the State would profit largely 
by the drill and experience the troops obtained at Charles- 
town, Mr. Hunter admits in these words: 

"From facts disclosed in the trials, from the intercepted corre- 
spondence of Brown and his followers, and from other sources, a 
new view of the case was opened to us in respect to the political 
significance of this movement of John Brown; we began to see that 
all it meant was not on the surface. My views were from time to 
time conveyed to Governor Wise, and before the trials both he and 
I became convinced, that this Brown raid was the beginning of a 
great conflict between the North and the South on the subject of 
slavery, and had better be regarded accordingly. This furnishes 
an additional explanation of the reason Governor Wise assembled 
so large a military volunteer force at Charlestown and the neigh- 
boring points. It was not alone for the protection of the jail and 
the repelling of parties who were known to be organizing with the 
view of rescuing Brown and the prisoners, but it was for the pur- 
pose of preparing for coming events." 

To General Taliaferro, the commander-in-chief at Charles- 
town, it was apparent that the Governor had another mo- 
tive besides protecting the prisoners, in assembling so many 
troops, for immediately after John Brown's execution he thus 
questioned the Governor by telegraph: "Shall I send home 
the First Regiment Virginia Volunteers? Which companies 
beside do you wish to retire? What are your views with re- 
gard to sending more troops here? Do you design a school 
of instruction? There is no absolute need for half we have." ^* 
Thus far Governor Wise may properly be accused of having 
allowed ulterior motives to influence his handling of the 
Charlestown situation, but no further. It is, moreover, certain 
that his disposition of the troops and the other precautions 



528 JOHN BROWN 

taken made a rescue practically Impossible, or possible only 
after severe loss of life. There are to-day survivors of those 
stirring days at Charlestown, who believe that if a determined 
attempt had been made, by means of a feint a mile or two 
from the town, the rawness of the militia and the generally 
panicky state of the town would have made the storming 
of the jail possible. But among the hundreds of troops who 
were steadily in camp throughout November, and those that 
came to reinforce them, there were some experienced officers 
and trustworthy men. As Le Barnes wrote to HIgginson, the 
real leaders of those who wished to rescue John Brown could 
see no hope of success, even were the means needed at their 
disposal. And as to the cost to Virginia of the military dis- 
play, it hardly exceeded the amount appropriated at that 
same time for new arms and ammunition by the Legislature 
of South Carolina with a view to the existing state of its 
relations to the Union, 

While the Virginia authorities were thus guarding John 
Brown in order to prevent a rescue, the "higher and wickeder 
game," namely, the chief accessories before the fact to his 
raid, whom Andrew Hunter and Governor Wise were so 
anxious to stalk until the Mason Committee was decided on, 
were by no means all at ease In their Massachusetts or New 
York preserves. When the raid turned out to be not another 
slave liberation like that in Missouri, but a drama with the 
whole nation as audience, there was something akin to trepi- 
dation among the self-appointed committee which had made 
John Brown's raid possible. Its members were plainly un- 
aware that to support a forcible attack upon a system, how- 
ever Iniquitous, in a country founded on the principle that 
differences of opinion must be settled by the ballot, carries 
with it both heavy responsibilities and grave personal dan- 
ger. Few of them had believed Brown's plans feasible; none 
had apparently asked themselves how far they would be com- 
promised In the eyes of the law when John Brown failed. The 
result was disastrous to some of them, though none of the 
leaders w^ent to jail or were otherwise punished for conspiring 
with John Brown. The conduct of a few illustrates clearly 
how good men of high principles and excellent motives may 
flinch gravely when they suddenly find their future reputa- 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 529 

tions, and perhaps even their lives, at stake in a grave and 
unexpected crisis. 

Of the men who, as we have already seen in the previous 
chapters, knew most about John Brown's plans and principally 
aided him, — Sanborn, Howe, Stearns, Gerrit Smith, Parker 
and Higginson, — the Boston and Worcester clergymen alone 
stand out as being entirely ready to take the consequences, 
whatever they might be. Theodore Parker was in Europe on 
a futile search for health, when Harper's Ferry was attacked; 
but he bore his testimony manfully: "Of course, I was not 
astonished to hear that an attempt had been made to free the 
slaves in a certain part of Virginia. . . . Such ' insurrections ' 
will continue as long as Slavery lasts, and will increase, both 
in frequency and in power, just as the people become intelli- 
gent and moral. . . . It is a good Anti-Slavery picture on the 
Virginia shield : a man standing on a tyrant and chopping his 
head off with a sword; only I would paint the sword-holder 
black and the tyrant white, to show the immediate applica- 
tion of the principle." ^^ As for Mr. Higginson, he stood his 
ground in Worcester, where all the world might find him. He 
wisely reasoned from information sent him from Washing- 
ton as to Senator Mason's plans, " that no one who leaves the 
country will be pursued, and no one who stands his ground 
will be molested. I think the reason why Phillips & I have 
not been summoned is that it was well understood that 
we were not going to Canada. Mason does not wish to have 
John Brown heartily defended before the committee & the 
country — nor does he wish to cause an emeute, either in Mas- 
sachusetts or Washington. He wishes simply to say that 
he tried for evidence & it was refused him. If his witnesses 
go to Canada or Europe, he is freed from all responsibility." ^^ 
The event wholly bore Mr. Higginson out, but the others 
were not of his opinion at any time. 

There was an early exodus of them to Canada. Frederick 
Douglass left Rochester for the shelter of the British flag as 
early as October 19, or the day after Brown was captured, and 
was soon on his way to England." Mr. Sanborn was only a 
day behind, departing from Concord on October 20, to return, 
however, by the 26th. ^^ From Portland, Mr. Sanborn thus 
jocularly notified Mr. Higginson of his departure: 



530 JOHN BROWN 

Portland, Oct. 21st, 1859. 
Dear Friend: According to advice of good friends and my own 
deliberate judgment I am going to try change of air for my old 
complaint. By this means it is thought that others will benefit as 
well as I ; whether my absence will be long or short will depend on 
circumstances. Yours of the 19th was rec'd yesterday before I left 
home. Should you have occasion to write me again I have a friend 
in Quebec named Frederick Stanley to whom you can write. 
Burn this. 

Yours ever,^^ 

The reason for the hasty move was John A. Andrew's opin- 
ion that the conspirators might be suddenly and secretly ar- 
rested and hurried out of the State. Mr. Sanborn believed, 
too, that it was "very important that the really small extent 
of our movement should be concealed, and its reach and char- 
acter exaggerated. . . ." ^^ After a more careful study of the 
question, Mr. Andrew advised George L. Stearns and Dr. 
Howe that he could find nothing for which they could be tried 
in Massachusetts or "carried to any other state." ^^ Never- 
theless, Stearns and Howe were on the way to Canada by 
October 25, remaining outside of the jurisdiction of the 
United States until after the execution of the crusader they 
had helped to send into Virginia. ^^ Later, on December 12, 
Mr. Andrew wrote to Senator Fessenden, of Maine: 

"I am confident that there are some half dozen men who ought 
not to testify anywhere, and who never will, with my consent as 
counsel, or otherwise, do so. Not that they knew, or foreknew Har- 
per's Ferry; — but, that their relations with Brown were such & 
their knowledge of his movements & intentions, as a ' practical abo- 
litionist,' aiding the escape of slaves by force, — even at the risk 
of armed encounter, — that they could not without personal danger 
say anything. Nor could they be known as having those relations, 
without giving some color to the charge that Republicans co-oper- 
ate in such movements." ^^ 

Mr. Stearns "escaped from Dr. Howe" — so his son re- 
cords — on the fatal December 2. He was never as worried as 
Dr. Howe, whom he found much agitated the first time they 
met after the raid. 

Unfortunately, Dr. Howe let his anxieties control him. He 
issued on November 14 a card dated in Boston, although he 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 531 

was still absent, in which he made the following inexplicable 
statements : 

" Rumor has mingled my name with the events at Harper's Ferry. 
So long as it rested on such absurdities as letters written to me by Col. 
Forbes, or others, it was too idle for notice. But when complicity is 
distinctly charged by one of the parties engaged [John E. Cook], my 
friends beseech me to define my position; and I consent the less re- 
luctantly, because I divest myself of what, in time, might be con- 
sidered an honor, and I want no undeserved ones. As regards Mr. 
Cook ... I never saw him . . . never even heard of him until 
since the outbreak at Harper's Ferry. That event was unforeseen and 
unexpected by me ; nor does all my previous knowledge of John Brown 
enable me to reconcile it with his characteristic prudence and his 
reluctance to shed blood, or excite servile insurrection. It is still, to 
me, a mystery, and a marvel. As to the heroic man who planned 
and led that forlorn hope, my relations with him in former times were 
such as no man ought to be afraid or ashamed to avow. If ever my 
testimony as to his high qualities can be of use to him or his, it shall 
be forthcoming at the fitting time and place. But neither this nor 
any other testimony shall be extorted for unrighteous purposes, if I 
can help it." 

Dr. Howe then explained that there were certain "deadly 
instruments" among the statutes of the Union under which 
"we of the North may be forced to uphold and defend the 
barbarous system of Human Slavery," because a "dishonest 
Judge in the remotest South" could through a marshal cause 
the arrest of any citizen and have him brought before the 
court. He concluded as follows: 

" I am told by high legal authority that Massachusetts is so tram- 
melled by the bonds of the Union, that, as matters now stand, she 
cannot, or dare not protect her citizens from such forcible extradi- 
tion; and that each one must protect himself as best he may. Upon 
that hint I shall act; preferring to forego anything rather than the 
right to free thought and free speech." ^^ 

In view of Dr. Howie's having known of the raid from Feb- 
ruary 26, 1858, when Mr. Sanborn informed him of all Brown's 
plans except the precise location at Harper's Ferry, ^^ the state- 
ments above can be defended only on the theory that it is 
proper to misrepresent when one finds one's self in an uncom- 
fortable or dangerous position. This sad attitude of a man at 
all other times a brave and high-minded philanthropist and 



532 JOHN BROWN 

a rarely useful servant of humanity, brought forth a vigorous 
reproach from Mr. Higginson.^^ In his indignation of the mo- 
ment he notified Mr. Sanborn that he regarded Dr. Howe's 
card as anything but honorable." 

For three months Dr. Howe could not find time to reply to 
Mr. Higginson. On February i6 he attempted to justify his 
course, writing as to the card of November 14: 

"... I was not very decided in the belief of its expediency. It 
was done, however, in consequence of an opinion which I held, and 
hold, that everything which could be honestly done to show that 
John Brown was not the Agent, or even the ally of others, but an 
individual acting upon his own responsibility, would increase the 
chances of escape for him and his companions. I believed, and I be- 
lieve, that every manifestation at that time of public sympathy for 
him and his acts, lessened the chances of his escape, whether by res- 
cue or otherwise. ... Of course, there were other considerations, 
but this was the leading one. . . . You say that it was skilfully writ- 
ten; but you seem to imply that honorable men, who knew all the 
facts, would disapprove it. But, my friend, it was simply written 
and not intended to carry a false impression. It was submitted to 
an honorable man who knew all that I knew about John Brown's 
movements, and a great deal more, and he approved it,* before its 
publication." ^^ 

As for his last interview with John Brown, Dr. Howe reiter- 
ated that "he [Brown] did not then reveal to me his destina- 
tion, or his purpose. We had no conversation about his future 
plans. His appearance at 'Harper's Ferry' was to me not 
only unexpected but quite astonishing. The original plan as 
I understood it was quite different from this one; & even that 
I supposed was abandoned." Dr. Howe averred that the last 
fifty dollars he had sent to Brown when he was at the Kennedy 
Farm, were given to show his sympathy and "without cogni- 
zance of his purpose." ^^ When Dr. Howe finally appeared be- 
fore the Mason Committee, he made every efi"ort to baffle the 
inquirers. For instance, he tried to make them believe that 
the last fifty dollars he gave went toward the purchase of 
the Thompson farm for Brown. Fortunately for him and the 
other conspirators, the Mason Committee was not only easily 
led astray, but, as Mr. Sanborn has well said, its questions 

* This was presumably John A. Andrew; if this excellent man and lawyer 
advised Dr. Howe's course, he must also share the responsibility. 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 533 

were "so unskilfully framed that they [the witnesses] could, 
without literal falsehood, answer as they did." ''" Mr. San- 
born was of a different mind from Mr. Higginson as to 
Dr. Howe's card.^^ His reasoning, however, only aroused Mr. 
Higginson anew, and led him to ask on November 17, 1859: 
"Is there no such thing as honor among confederates?" ^2 
Making all due allowances for the heat of the moment as ex- 
pressed in Colonel Higginson's letter, it does not seem even 
at this date that his reasoning was far wrong. 

Mr. Sanborn has lately set forth in detail his own move- 
ments and the reasons therefor. By the 19th of November, 
1859, he had decided "to pursue my usual occupation or any 
that I may take up, whatever summons or other process may 
be issued ; shall resist arrest by force, shall refuse to sue a writ 
of habeas corpus — but, if arrested, shall consent to be rescued 
only by force. It is possible the anxiety of friends may in- 
duce me to modify this course, but I think not."^'^ Early in 
January, i860, he received a summons from the Mason Com- 
mittee. Like John Brown, Jr., he refused to go to Washington 
because there was no assurance of his personal safety, — he 
might be seized in passing through Maryland. When, for this 
reason, Mr. Sanborn offered to testify in Massachusetts, Sen- 
ator Mason wrote that he would be personally responsible 
for Mr. Sanborn's safety. To this the latter replied that as 
Senator Sumner had been brutally assaulted in the Senate, 
he could hardly rely on Senator Mason's offer of protection. 
Says Mr. Sanborn: 

" Upon the receipt of this missive, Mason reported me to the Sen- 
ate as a contumacious witness, and my arrest was voted, February 
16, i860, as that of John Brown, Jr., and James Redpath was. A few 
of the Southern Senators, seeing that my attitude about State Rights 
was quite similar to theirs, voted against my arrest, and began to 
send me their political speeches. Not choosing to be seized before I 
was quite ready, I retired to Canada, in the latter part of February, 
taking North Elba in my northward route, in order to see the Brown 
family, and to make arrangements for two of Brown's daughters, 
Anne and Sarah, to enter my school, as they did, in March." ^* 

On the night of April 3, i860, peaceful Concord was aroused 
by one of the dramatic incidents of its history. Five men, 
headed by a Boston constable, Silas Carleton, arrested San- 



534 JOHN BROWN 

born in his home. The outcries of his sister, his own struggles, 
the ringing of the alarm-bells, the rallying to his support of his 
neighbors, saved him from being carried off. His counsel was 
quickly at his side and hurried at once to Judge Rockwood 
Hoar, a near-by neighbor, who on hearing the tumult had 
quietly begun to fill out the "proper blank for the great writ 
of personal replevin." It was in the hands of a deputy sheriff 
within ten minutes. When he demanded Mr. Sanborn's sur- 
render of Carleton's men, they refused to give him up, — only 
to have him taken from them by a hastily formed but most 
zealous posse comitatus. The Supreme Court quickly decided 
the next day that his arrest by the emissaries of the Senate 
was without warrant of law, and Mr. Sanborn returned to 
Concord a hero to his townspeople. He protested to the 
Senate and began suit against Carleton and his men, and 
thereafter he remained in peace. 

Mr. Stearns appeared before the Mason Committee on Feb- 
ruary 24, i860, and his testimony is as interesting as it is his- 
torically valuable. He, too, denied any pre-knowledge of the 
raid except as a plan to "relieve slaves " by force. But he was 
obviously unafraid. When Senator Mason asked, the three- 
hour examination being over, and all the members of the com- 
mittee but himself having left the room : ' ' Don' t your conscience 
trouble you for sending those rifles to Kansas to shoot our 
innocent people?" Mr. Stearns replied: "Self-defence. You 
began the game. You sent Buford and his company with arms 
before we sent any from Massachusetts."^^ Senator Mason 
later remarked to Mr. Stearns: " I think when you go to that 
lower place, the Old Fellow will question you rather hard about 
this matter and you will have to take it." "Before that 
time comes," retorted Mr. Stearns wittily, "I think he will 
have about two hundred years of Slavery to investigate, and 
before he gets through that, will say, we have had enough 
of this business — better let the rest go." ^^ Senator Mason 
laughed and left the room. Asked, in the course of the formal 
examination, if he disapproved of the raid at Harper's Ferry, 
Mr. Stearns responded: " I should have disapproved of it if I 
had known of it; but I have since changed my opinion; I be- 
lieve John Brown to be the representative man of this century, 
as Washington was of the last — the Harper's Ferry affair, and 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 535 

the capacity shown by the Italians for self-government, the 
great events of this age. One will free Europe and the other 
America." " Mr. Stearns returned to Boston to render valu- 
able service to his State in the Civil War, and retained, as 
long as he lived, the respect and regard of the community in 
which he dwelt. 

Upon Gerrit Smith the news of the raid had as deplorable 
an effect as upon Dr. Howe. His biographer, O. B. Frothing- 
ham, states that a high medical authority had declared Gerrit 
Smith to have reached the stage of insanity known as "exalta- 
tion of mind" early in 1859; ^« that in the fall of 1859 he ate 
and slept little and was exhausted without knowing it. When 
the Harper's Ferry attack became public, it had an astounding 
influence upon Mr. Smith. The outcries against him as an 
accessory, in the pro-slavery press and by his political enemies, 
the rumor that the Virginia authorities were about to requi- 
sition the Governor of New York for his extradition, and 
the bloody and futile character of the raid itself, all reduced 
him to a state of terror. He saw crumbling before him the 
high social and political position he had won, — Mr. Smith 
had been candidate for the governorship of New York in 1858. 
A reporter of the New York Herald found him, on October 30, 
nervously agitated, "as though some great fear were constantly 
before his imagination," and repeating again and again that 
he was going to be indicted. Edwin Morton, Mr. Sanborn's 
classmate, who had been cognizant of the Brown plot as a 
member of Gerrit Smith's household, promptly fled to Eng- 
land, ^^ and Colonel Charles D. Miller, Mr. Smith's son-in-law, 
was sent to Ohio and to Boston to obtain or destroy all of Mr. 
Smith's letters to the confederates, lest they be used against 
him.^o "After struggling for several days," wrote Mr. Froth- 
ingham, "he went down under a troop of hallucinations." On 
November 7 he was removed to the Utica Asylum for the In- 
sane, whose superintendent. Dr. Gray, is said to have declared 
that a delay of even forty-eight hours would have been fatal, 
so great was the "physical prostration of the patient." 

If this were the whole story, it would be easy to pass over 
Mr. Smith's case with an expression of unbounded sympathy 
and a regret that he, too, had failed properly to weigh the con- 
sequences of committing himself to John Brown's schemes. 



536 JOHN BROWN 

Unfortunately, after his return from his brief stay in the 
asylum (on December 29), he concealed or denied the extent 
of his knowledge and complicity in the raid. Mr. Frothing- 
ham has put the case as charitably as possible: 

"On emerging from the mental obscuration at Utica, the whole 
scheme or tissue of schemes had vanished and become visionary. . , . 
It was a dream, a mass of recollections tumultuous and indistinct. 
Then cool reflection came in. The practical objections to the enter- 
prise, which had flitted across his mind before, settled down heavily 
upon it. The ill-judged nature of the plan in its details and in its 
general scope forced itself upon his consideration, and made him wish 
he had never been privy to it. The wish was father to a thought, the 
thought to a purpose. His old horror of blood, his old disbelief in 
violence as a means of redressing wrong, resumed its sway over his 
feelings. The man of business repelled the association with the 
visionary and tried to persuade himself that he had taken no part 
in operations that were so easily disconcerted. He set himself to 
the task of making the shadowy recollections more shadowy still, 
and reducing his terms of alliance with the audacious conspirator to 
sentiments of personal sympathy and admiration." ^^ 

This led him to deny, even as late as 1867, that he gave 
money to John Brown with the purpose of aiding his insurrec- 
tion. ^^ Mr. Frothingham was unable to defend him or to excul- 
pate him on the ground of insanity, and Mr. Sanborn, in his 
recently published account of this episode, — long withheld 
out of consideration for the family, — makes it as clear as have 
the earlier chapters of this narrative, that Gerrit Smith was, 
like Sanborn, Howe and the others, cognizant of every detail 
of the raid save the place of its beginning. Indeed, in a letter 
to the chairman of the Jerry Rescue Committee, dated August 
27, 1859, Mr. Smith had foreshadowed the raid by writing: 
" For insurrection then we may look any year, any month, any 
day. A terrible remedy for a terrible wrong ! But come it must 
unless anticipated by repentance and the putting away of the 
terrible wrong." ^^ 

However great the perturbation of his Northern associ- 
ates, no prisoner in Virginia's history up to that time had 
displayed greater serenity of spirit than did John Brown 
himself behind his cell doors in Charlestown. It was a reve- 
lation to the Virginians. Here was a man sore in body, who 
ought to be sore in spirit, two of whose sons had been killed 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 537 

at his side, whose own death was not far away. More than 
that, the object of a Hfetime had wholly miscarried. Propriety 
and precedent prescribed a cast-down prisoner, chagrined, 
humihated, despairing. Instead, the miscreant in the custody 
of Sheriff Campbell proved a man of unquenchable spirit, 
of most equable temperament, and of unswerving courage, 
who apparently believed himself the conqueror, even with the 
light chains upon his ankles which he wore for the first few 
days. He wrote but the truth as to his own spirit and com- 
posure in his first letter from the jail to his family at North 

Elba: 

Charlestown, Jefferson Co, Va. 
31st Oct. 

My dear Wife, & Children every One 

I suppose you have learned before this by the newspapers that 
Two weeks ago today we were fighting for our lives at Harpers 
ferry: that during the fight Watson was mortally wounded; Oliver 
killed, Wm Thompson killed, & Dauphin slightly wounded. That 
on the following day I was taken prisoner immediately after which 
I received several Sabre-cuts in my head; & Bayonet stabs in 
my body. As nearly as I can learn Watson died of his wound on 
Wednesday the 2d or on Thursday the 3d day after I was taken. 

Dauphin was killed when I was taken; & Anderson I suppose 
also. I have since been tried, & found guilty of Treason, etc; and of 
murder in the first degree. I have not yet received my sentence. No 
others of the company with whom you were acquainted were, so 
far as / can learn, either killed or taken. Under all these terrible 
calamities; I feel quite cheerful in the assurance that God reigns; & 
will overrule all for his glory; & the best possible good*. I feel no 
consciousness of guilt in the matter: nor even mortifycation on 
account of my imprisonment; & irons; & I feel perfectly sure that 
very soon no member of my family will feel any possible disposition 
to "blush on my account." Already dear friends at a distance with 
kindest sympathy are cheering me with the assurance that posterity 
at least will do me justice. I shall commend you all together, with 
my beloved; but bereaved daughters in law, to their sympathies 
which I do not doubt will reach you. 

I also commend you all to Him "whose mercy endureth forever:" 
to the God of my fathers "whose I am; & whom I serve." "He will 
never leave you nor forsake you," unless you forsake Him. Finally 
my dearly beloved be of good comfort. Be sure to remember &" to 
follow my advice & my example too ; so far as it has been consistent 
with the holy religion of Jesus Christ in which I remain a most firm, 
& humble believer. Never forget the poor nor think anything you 
bestow on them to be lost, to you even though they may be as black 
as Ebedmelch the Ethiopean eunuch who cared for Jeremiah in the 



538 JOHN BROWN 

pit of the dungeon; or as black as the one to whom Phillip preached 
Christ. Be sure to entertain strangers, for thereby some have — 
"Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them." I am in 
charge of a jailor like the one who took charge of " Paul & Silas;" & 
you may rest assured that both kind hearts & kind faces are more or 
less about me; whilst thousands are thirsting for my blood. "These 
light afflictions which are but for a moment shall work out for us a 
far more exceeding & eternal weight of Glory." I hope to be able to 
write to you again. My wounds are doing well. Copy this, & send 
it to your sorrow stricken brothers, Ruth; to comfort them. Write 
me a few words in regard to the welfare of all. God Allmighty bless 
you all: & "make you joyful in the midst of all your tribulations." 
Write to John Brown Charlestown Jefferson Co, Va, care of Capt 
John Avis. 

Your Affectionate Husband, & Father, 

John Brown 

P S Yesterday Nov 2d I was sentenced to be hanged on Decem 2d 
next. Do not grieve on my account. I am still quite cheerful. God 
bless you all. 

Yours ever 

J Brown ^* 

In their generous permission to John Brown to write freely 
to all whom he wished to address, his captors were unwittingly 
allowing him to use a — for them — far more dangerous weapon 
than the Sharp's rifle they had taken from him at Harper's 
Ferry. As a waelder of arms, John Brown inspires no enthu- 
siasm; not even the flaming sword of Gideon in his hands 
lifts him above the ordinary run of those who battled in their 
day for a great cause. For all his years of dreaming that he 
might become another Schamyl, or Toussaint L'Ouverture, 
or the Mountain Marion of a new war of liberation, he was 
anything but a general. In his knapsack was no field-marshal's 
baton; where he thought there might be one, lay instead an 
humble pen to bring him glory. For when he was stripped 
of his liberty, of the arms in which he exulted, the great power 
of the spirit within was revealed to him. The letters which 
now daily went forth to friends and relatives, and speedily 
found their way into print, found their way also to the hearts 
of all who sympathized with him, and of many who abhorred 
his methods, or who had heretofore steeled themselves against 
him. Some idea of their power may be gathered from the 
fact that Sheriff Campbell was compelled many times to wipe 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 539 

the tears from his eyes when, as a matter of duty, he read 
over his captive's epistles.^^ The innate nobility of the man, 
his essential unselfishness and his readiness for the supreme 
sacrifice, all heightened the impending tragedy, and brought 
to many the conviction that, misguided as he was, here was 
another martyr whose blood was to be the seed, not of his 
church, but of his creed. Some of these moving products of 
his pen may well find a place here: 

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. i, 1859. 

My Dear Friend E. B. of R. L : Your most cheering letter of the 
27th of Oct. is received, and may the Lord reward you a thousand 
fold for the kind feeling you express toward me ; but more especially 
for your fidelity to the "poor that cry, and those that have no 
help." For this I am a prisoner in bonds. It is solely my own fault, 
in a military point of view, that we met with our disaster — I mean 
that I mingled with our prisoners and so far sympathized with them 
and their families that I neglected my duty in other respects. But 
God's will, not mine, be done. 

You know that Christ once armed Peter. So also in my case, I 
think he put a sword into my hand, and there continued it, so long 
as he saw best, and then kindly took it from me. I mean when I 
first went to Kansas. I wish you could know with what cheerfulness 
I am now wielding the "Sword of the Spirit" on the right hand and 
on the left. I bless God that it proves "mighty to the pulling down 
of strongholds." I always loved my Quaker friends, and I com- 
mend to their kind regard my poor, bereaved widowed wife, and 
my daughters and daughters-in-law, whose husbands fell at my side. 
One is a mother and the other likely to become so soon. They, as 
well as my own sorrow-stricken daughter[s], are left very poor, and 
have much greater need of sympathy than I, who, through Infinite 
Grace and the kindness of strangers, am "joyful in all my tribu- 
lations." 

Dear sister, write them at North Elba, Essex Co., N. Y., to com- 
fort their sad hearts. Direct to Mary A. Brown, wife of John Bro\yn. 
There is also another — a widow, wife of Thompson, who fell with 
my poor boys in the affair at Harper's Ferry, at the same place. 

I do not feel conscious of guilt in taking up arms; and had it been 
in behalf of the rich and powerful, the intelligent, the great — as 
men count greatness — of those who form enactments to suit them- 
selves and corrupt others, or some of their friends, that I interfered, 
suffered, sacrificed, and fell, it would have been doing very well. But 
enough of this. 

These light afflictions which endure for a moment, shall work out 
for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. I would be 
very grateful for another letter from you. My wounds are heaUng. 



540 JOHN BROWN 

Farewell. God will surely attend to his own cause in the best pos- 
sible way and time, and he will not forget the work of his own hands. 

Your friend, 

John Brown.^^ 

To his wife he wrote thus on November lo: 

Charlestown Jefferson Co. Va. loth Nov. 1859. 
My Dear devoted Wife 

I have just learned from Mr. Hoyt of Boston that he saw you 
with dear kind friends in Philadelphia on your return trip you had 
so far made in the expectation of again seeing me in this world 
of "sin & sorrow." I need not tell you that I had a great desire to 
see you again: but that many strong objections exist in my mind 
against it. I have before alluded to them in what I have said in my 
other letters (which I hope you will soon get) & will not now repeat 
them ; as it is exceedingly laborious for me to write at all. I am under 
renewed obligation to you my ever faithful & beloved wife, for heed- 
ing what may be my last but earnest request. I have before given 
you a very brief statement of the fall of our dear sons; & other 
friends. Full particulars relating to our disaster; I cannot now give: 
& may never give probably. I am greatly comforted by learning of 
the kindness already shown you; & allow me humbly to repeat the 
language of a far greater man & better sinner than I. "I have been 
young; & now am old: yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken 
nor his seed begging bread." I will here say that the sacrifizes you; 
& I, have been called to make in behalf of the cause we love the cause 
of God; & of humanity: do not seem to me as at all too great. I have 
been ivhiped as the saying is; but am sure I can recover all the lost 
capital occasioned by that disaster; by only hanging a few moments 
by the neck; & I feel quite determined to make the utmost possible 
out of a defeat. I am dayly & hourly striving to gather up what 
little I may from the wreck. I mean to write you as much & as often 
as I have Strength (or may be permitted to write.) "Be of good 
cheer:" in the world we must have tribulation: but the cords that 
have bound you as well as I ; to earth : have been many of them 
severed already. Let us with sincere gratitude receive all that "our 
Father in Heaven" may send us; for "he doeth all things well." 
You must kiss our dear children and grandchildren for me. May 
the "God of my fathers" be the God, & father of all — "To him 
be everlasting praise." "Although the fig tree shall not blossom: 
neither shall fruit be in the vines: the labour of the olive shall fail, and 
the fields shall yield no meat: the flock shall be cut off from the fold, 
and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet / ivill rejoice in the Lord, 
I will joy in the God of my salvation." I want dear Ruth; or Anne; 
to send copies (when they can) to their deeply afflicted brothers, 
of all I write. I cannot muster strength to write them all. If after 
Virginia has applied the finishing stroke to the picture already made 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 541 

of me (in order to ''establish Justice'') you can afford to meet the 
expence & trouble of coming on here to gather up the bones of our 
beloved sons, & of your husband ; and the people here will suffer 
you to do so; I should be entirely willing. I have just received a 
most welcome letter from a dear old friend of my youth; Rev. H. 
L. Vail of Litchfield Connecticut. Will you get some kind friend to 
copy this letter to you & send him very plain as all the acknowledge- 
ment I have now strength to make him; & the other kind friends he 
mentions. I cannot write my friends as I would do; if I had strength. 
Will you answer to Jeremiah in the same way for the present a letter 
I have received from him? Write me wont you? God bless you all 
Your affectionate Husband 

John Brown." 

He had previously adjured his wife and children to remem- 
ber, all, 

"that Jesus of Nazareth suffered a most excruciating death on the 
cross as a fellon; under the most agravating circumstances. Think/ 
also of the prophets, & Apostles, & Christians of former days ; who 
went through greater tribulations than you & I; & be_ reconciled, -j^ 
May God Allmighty ' comfort all your hearts and soon wipe away all 
tears from your eyes.' To him be endless praise. Think too of the 
crushed Millions who 'have no comforters.' / charge you all never (in 
your trials) to forget the griefs of ' the poor that cry ; & of those that 
have none to help them.' " *^ 

On the 1 6th of November he thus expressed himself as to 
the education of his daughters: 

" Now let me say a word about the effort to educate our daughters. 
I am no longer able to provide means to help towards that object, 
and it therefore becomes me not to dictate in the matter. I shall 
gratefully submit the direction of the whole thing to those whose 
generosity may lead them to undertake in their behalf, while I give 
anew a little expression of my own choice respecting it. You, _ my 
wife, perfectly well know that I have always expressed a decided 
preference for a very plain but perfectly practical education for both 
sons and daughters. I do not mean an education so very miserable 
as that you and / received in early life ; nor as some of our children 
enjoyed. When I say plain but practical, I mean enough of the 
learning of the schools to enable them to transact the common 
business of life, comfortably and respectably, together with that 
thorough training to good business habits which best prepares both 
men and women to be useful though poor, and to meet the stern 
Realities of life with a good grace. You well know that I always 
claimed that the music of the broom, washtub, needle, spindle, loom, 
axe, scythe, hoe, flail, etc., should first be learned, at all events, and 



542 JOHN BROWN 

that of the piano, etc., afterwards. I put them in that order as most 
conducive to health of body and mind ; and for the obvious reason, 
that after a hfe of some experieyice and of much observation, I have 
found ten ivomen as well as ten men who have made their mark in 
life Right, whose early training was of that plain, practical kind, to 
one who had a more popular and fashionable early training. But 
enough of that." 

To this he added : 

"Now, in regard to your coming here; If you feel sure that you 
can endure the trials and the shock, which will be unavoidable (if 
you come), I should be most glad to see you once more; but when 
I think of your being insulted on the road, and perhaps while here, 
and of only seeing your wretchedness made complete, I shrink from 
it. Your composure and fortitude of mind may be quite equal to it 
all ; but I am in dreadful doubt of it. // you do come, defer your 
journey till about the 27th or 28th of this month. The scenes which 
you will have to pass through on coming here will be anythi^ig but 
those you now pass, with tender, kind-hearted friends, and kind 
faces to meet you everywhere. Do consider the matter well before 
you make the plunge. I think I had better say no more on this most 
painful subject. My health improves a little ; my mind is very tran- 
quil, I may say joyous, and I continue to receive every kind atten- 
tion that I have any possible need of."*" 

To a sympathizer in West Newton, Massachusetts, Brown 

wrote as follows: 

Charlestown, Jefferson Co, 15th Nov. 1859. 
George Adams Esqr. 
My Dear Sir 

Your most kind communication of the 5th inst was received by 
me in due time. You request a few lines from me: which I cannot 
deny you: though much at a loss what to write. Your kind mention 
of some things in my conduct here which you approve; is very 
comforting indeed to my mind: yet I am conscious that you do me 
more than justice. I do certainly feel that through divine grace / 
have endeavoured to be " faithful in a very few things ; " mingling with 
even those much of imperfection. I am certainly unworthy even 
to "suffer affliction wit-h the people of God;'' yet, in Infinite grace 
he has thus honored me. May the same grace enable me to serve 
him in ''new obedience'' through my little remainder of this Hfe; 
and to rejoice in him forever. I cannot feel that God will suffer 
even the poorest service we may any of us render him or his cause 
to be lost; or in vain. I do feel "dear Brother;" that I am won- 
derfully "strengthened from on high." May I use that strength in 
"showing his strength unto this generation," and his power to every 
one that is to come. I am most grateful for your assurance that 



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BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 543 

my poor shattered heart-broken " family will not be forgotten." I 
have long tried to commend them to "the God of my Fathers." 
I have ma7iy opportunities ior faithful plain dealing ; with the more 
powerful, influential, and inteligent class; in this region: which I 
trust are not entirely misimproved. I humbly trust that I firmly 
believe that "God reigns;" and I think I can truly say "Let the 
Earth rejoice.'" 

May God take care of his own cause; and of his own great name: 
as well as of them who love their neighbours. 
Farewell 

Your[s] in truth 

John Brown "" 

In a letter to a kinsman, Luther Humphrey, dated Novem- 
ber 19, occur these passages: 

"Your kind letter of the 12th inst. is now before me. So far as 
my knowledge goes as to our mutual kindred ; I suppose / am the 
first since the landing of Peter Brown from the Mayflower that has 
either been sentenced to imprisonment ; or to the Gallows. But my 
dear old friend; let not that fact alone grieve you. You cannot have 
forgotten how ; & where our Grand Father Capt (John Brown:) fell 
in 1776; & that he too; might have perished on the Scaffold had cir- 
cumstances been but very little different. The fact that a man dies 
under the hand of an executioner (or otherwise) has but little to do 
with his true character; as I suppose: John Rogers perished at the 
stake a great & good man as I suppose: but his being so, does not 
prove that any other man who has died in the same way was good: 
or othenvise. Whether I have any reason to ' be of good cheer ' (or 
not) in view of my end; I can assure you that I feel so; & that I am 
totally blinded if I do not realy experience that strengthening ; & con- 
solation you so faithfully implore in my behalf. God of our Fathers 
reward your fidelity. I neither feel mortified, degraded, nor in the 
least ashamed of my imprisonment, my chain, or my near prospect 
of death by hanging. I feel assured ' that not one hair shall fall from 
my head without my heavenly Father.' I also feel that I have long 
been endeavoring to hold exactly 'such a fast as God has chosen.' 
See the passage in Isaiah which you have quoted. No part of my 
life has been more hapily spent; than that I have spent here; & I 
humbly trust that no part has been spent to better purpose. I would 
not say this boastingly, but ' thanks be unto God who giveth us the 
victory; through Infinite grace.'" ®^ 

And, finally, to his staunch friend, Thomas Wentworth 
Higginson, he wrote on November 22 : 

Dear Sir 

I write you a few lines to express to you my deep feeling of grati- 
tude for your journey to visit & comfort my family as well as myself 



544 JOHN BROWN 

in different ways & at different times; since my imprisonment here. 
Truly you have proved yourself to be "a friend in need;" & I feel 
my many obligations for all your kind attentions, none the less ; for 
my wishing my Wife not to come on when she first set out. I would 
it were in my power to make to all my kind friends; some other 
acknowledgements than a mere tender of our & my thanks. I can 
assure all : Mrs. Stearns, my young friend Hoyt ; & many others I 
have been unable to write to as yet; that I certainly do not forget ;' 
their love, & kindness. God Allmighty bless; & save them all; & 
grant them to see; a fulfilment of all their reasonable desires. . . . 
I am getting much better of my wounds; but am yet rather lame. 
Am very cheerful & trust I may continue so "to the end." 
My love to all Yours for God & 

dear friends. the right; 

John Brown "^ 

As he lay in jail at Charlestown, so vividly did the press 
portray John Brown in his prison background that those in 
the North who were moved by his speeches in court and 
his letters could fairly hear the clanking of his chains, could 
behold him on his bed of suffering, and later could see him 
toiling with his pen. The reporting was detailed and faith- 
ful. From it the public learned that in Captain John Avis he 
had a kind and considerate jailer; that by the 2d of Novem- 
ber all his wounds were healed, save one cut on the back of 
his head;^^ that he welcomed and greeted his visitors cor- 
dially, even Captain Sinn and his militiamen from Frederick, 
who were permitted to enter the jail at the end of October 
and stare at the prisoners as if they were caged animals. They 
were amazed at John Brown's composure and contentment 
as he told them of his admiration for the picked company of 
Virginia riflemen he had been thrown with in the War of 1812, 
and expressed his regret that circumstances prevented his 
seeing Captain Sinn's men on parade.^* Only one visitor did 
John Brown render really uncomfortable. He was a Metho- 
dist clergyman, Norval Wilson, who, after calling on Brown 
with others of his cloth, proposed a prayer. "Mr. Wilson," 
asked Brown, "do you believe in slavery?" Mr, Wilson re- 
plied,"! do, under the present circumstances." "Then," said 
Brown with great earnestness, "I do not want your prayers. 
I don't want the prayers of any man that believes in slavery. 
You can pray to your Father that heareth in secret." ^^ In a 
similar spirit he wrote to the Rev. Mr. McFarland,of Wooster, 
Ohio: 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 545 

"You may wonder, are there no ministers of the gospel here? I 
answer, No. There are no ministers of Christ here. These ministers 
who profess to be Christian, and hold slaves or advocate slavery, I 
cannot abide them. My knees will not bend in prayer with them 
while their hands are stained with the blood of souls." ^ 

To the local newspaper editors who called, he was frank 
and cordial, answering freely every question which did not 
''involve others" and that was "consistent with honor." 
When asked by the Charlestown Independent Democrat if he 
were ready to meet death under the law, his reply was: "Am 
entirely ready so far as I know," and, "I feel no shame on 
account of my doom. Jesus of Nazareth was doomed in like 
manner. Why should not I be?"^^ 

The first of several friendly visitors from the North were 
Judge and Mrs. Russell. The latter remembers to this day 
how calm, rugged and comfortable Brown looked on the day 
the court fixed the bounds of his life. "Oh, my dear," he 
exclaimed to Mrs. Russell, "this is no place for you." But 
she found that there was some woman's work to do, for she 
had the captive's coat cleaned, and repaired it with her skilful 
hands, while her husband, as they conversed, was ever looking 
at the wide chimney in the room and praying that John Brown 
might be spirited away to freedom by that ample channel. ^^ 
To the judge the prisoner reiterated his assertion, often made 
in those prison days, that he was not personally concerned 
in the Pottawatomie murders, — an assertion which misled 
Judge Russell into saying, on John Brown's word, that the 
latter had "nothing to do" with the killing; and Wendell 
Phillips into announcing publicly in Cooper Union that Brown 
was not at Pottawatomie — "not within twenty-five miles 
of the spot." 99 

"Have you objections," the Russells heard John Brown 
say to Captain Avis, In calm, unmoved tone, "to my writ- 
ing to my wife and telling her that I am to be hanged on 
the second of December?" "At last," says Mrs. Russell, "we 
had to take our leave. I kissed him, weeping. His mouth 
trembled, ever so little, but he only said: 'Now, go.'" And 
back to their hotel the Russells went In tears, marvelling at 
the utter absence in their doomed friend of self-commisera- 
tion, or of anything suggesting a quarrel with fate. Just as 



546 JOHN BROWN 

they reached Boston, Mrs. Brown was starting for Harper's 
Ferry. There the Russells gave her the reassuring news of her 
husband's comfort and happiness, and told her that he would 
not walk out of jail then if its doors were thrown open, — 
so indebted to Captain Avis did he feel.^'"' 

If John Brown did not let his wife join him at that time, he 
did receive a visit from Mrs. Rebecca Spring, of Perth Amboy, 
New Jersey, who exclaimed to her husband, "I must go and 
help them," the instant she heard that there were wounded 
Abolitionists in prison at Harper's Ferry. "We have talked 
against slavery all these years; and now somebody has done 
something. These men have risked their lives; I must go," 
she said. And go she did, to tell John Brown, when she reached 
his cell, by permission of Judge Parker, that "it is better to 
die for a great idea than of a fever," and to learn from his 
lips that no spirit of revenge had actuated the raid. Mrs. 
Spring, too, ministered unto John Brown and his cellmate 
Stevens, the latter handsome and impressive despite his ter- 
rible wounds, and bearing his sufferings with grim and silent 
fortitude, expecting to die, but never once complaining, i^i * 
To study Brown as he sat at his cell-desk, Edwin A. Brackett, 
a sculptor, of Boston, came, — thanks to Mrs. G. L. Stearns's 
generosity, — and sketched him from the door of the cell, 
as the first step toward the familiar idealized bust.^^^ Later 
came an old friend of the Pennsylvania days, M. B. Lowry, 
to bid his instructor in tanning farewell. ^^^ Samuel C. Pome- 
roy, the friend from Kansas, and later its Senator, was greeted 
with, "In prison ye came unto me," when he entered Brown's 
cell to ask, "You remember the rescue of John Doy. Do you 
want your friends to attempt it?" But Brown only repeated, 
"I am worth now infinitely more to die than to live." ^^'^ It 
was Henry Clay Pate, however, the conquered at Black Jack, 
who most vividly called up the Kansas days to Brown. Their 
meeting was not cordial. Captain Pate came to gloat over 
his ensnared conqueror, and Captain Brown of Osawatomie 
declared frankly that he had met many men possessed of more 
courage than Captain Pate, ex-Border Rufiian. To which 
Captain Pate responded by charging Brown with all kinds of 
villainy, particularly theft. ^°^ 

* Mrs. Spring now lives in Los Angeles, having nearly reached the century mark. 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 547 

When, in response to the panic fears of his commanders at 
Charlestown, Governor Wise reached there on November 20, 
with four hundred soldiers, the little Virginia town had as- 
sumed all the appearance of a beleaguered city. The troops 
were quartered in the churches, schools and in the court-house. 
The very graveyards were invaded for washing and cooking 
purposes when the militia were not parading or playing "fox 
and hounds" in the streets. ^"^ Extraordinary were some of 
the military make-ups worn by the cavaliers. "Among many 
corps, each military gentleman selected his own uniform; 
and, while all seemed affected with a contempt for their citi- 
zen clothes, rarely more than two agreed in the selection of 
the color of their military dress." ^"^ But these men in buck- 
ram, as well as Governor Wise, were more desirous of seeing 
John Brown than of seeing even the charming women of 
Charlestown; and to his cell they were admitted in squads of 
ten and fifteen, save when the Governor himself was closeted 
with him.^°^ It is an interesting fact that, much as the Vir- 
ginians abhorred John Brown's actions, they respected his 
word. When he certified that a suspect brought before him 
had been a Border Ruffian and not a Free State man, the 
prisoner was instantly set free without question. ^"^ So Gov- 
ernor Wise talked once more with the State prisoner, with 
absolute confidence in his veracity and integrity. This inter- 
view Governor W^ise himself has described : 

"I visited John Brown but once after his incarceration to await 
his trial. I especially desired to ascertain whether he had any com- 
munication to make to me other than he had already made. He 
repeated mostly the same information, expressed his personal re- 
gard and respect for me, thanked me for my kindness in protecting 
him from all violence and in providing for his comfort. He com- 
plained of some disease of the kidneys, and I tendered him the best 
aid of physician and surgeon, which he declined, for the reason that 
he was accustomed to an habitual treatment, which he had already 
provided for himself. He talked with me freely and I offered to be 
the depositary of any confidential request consistent with my honor 
and duty; and when we parted he cordially gave me his blessing, 
wishing me every return for the attentions to him as a prisoner." ^^° 

Whil|> Governor Wise was with him, Brown corrected an 
obvious conflict between his statements as to his real object, 
after his capture (that it was not to carry off the slaves and 



548 JOHN BROWN 

free them), and his declaration in court, on being sentenced, 
that his sole object was to run the slaves off as he had done 
in Missouri. The next day he sent for Andrew Hunter, and 
after a talk with him, addressed to him the following note: 

Charlestown, Jefferson county, Va., 
November 22, 1859. 
Dear Sir: I have just had my attention called to a seeming 
confliction between the statement I at first made to Governor Wise 
and that which I made at the time I received my sentence, regard- 
ing my intentions respecting the slaves we took about the Ferry. 
There need be no such confliction, and a few words of explanation 
will, I think, be quite sufficient. I had given Governor Wise dL full 
and particular account of that, and when called in court to say 
whether I had anything further to urge, I was taken wholly by sur- 
prise, as I did not expect my sentence before the others. In the 
hurry of the moment, I forgot much that I had before intended to 
say, and did not consider the full bearing of what / then said. I in- 
tended to convey this idea, that it was my object to place the slaves 
in a condition to defend their liberties, if they would, without any 
bloodshed, but not that I intended to run them out of the slave States. 
I was not aware of any such apparent confliction until my attention 
was called to it, and I do not suppose that a man in my then circum- 
stances should be superhuman in respect to the exact purport of every 
word he might utter. What I said to Governor Wise was spoken 
with all the deliberation I was master of, and was intended for truth ; 
and what I said in court was equally intended for trjith, but required 
a more full explanation than I then gave. Please make such use of 
this as you think calculated to correct any wrong impressions I may 
have given. 

Very respectfully, yours, 

John Brown 
Andrew Hunter, Esq., Present.'"* 

The suffering wife of the prisoner had not returned to North 
Elba, after being stopped at Baltimore on her way to her hus- 
band. It seemed best to those friends who now came to her 
aid to keep her where she could leave for Harper's Ferry at 
a moment's notice. So, heavy of heart, she went first to Mr. 

* Andrew Hunter always declined to believe Brown's explanation that he was 
taken by surprise in court. It is interesting to note, however, that Dr. John D. 
Starry stated to a correspondent of the Tribune in May, 1884, that it was not true 
that John Brown had prevaricated after his capture; that he was a man of excita- 
ble temperament prone to error in excitement, but that when over his excitability 
"he was as exact as could be." See New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, May 27, 
1884. 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 549 

William Still's home at Philadelphia, whence, with Mrs. 
Spring just from John Brown's cell, she went to Eagleswood, 
Mrs. Spring's Perth Amboy home. Here she received every 
attention, but it was deemed wise to have her return to Phila- 
delphia on November 16, with Mr. McKim, with whom, and 
with Lucretia Mott, she spent the remaining weeks of her 
husband's life, quite content to abide by her husband's de- 
cision that it was unwise for her to go to his side.'^^ On the 
2 1st, with Mr. McKim's aid, she composed a touching letter 
to Governor Wise, begging for the "mortal remains of my 
husband and his sons" for decent and tender interment among 
their kindred. ^^^ Of his reply Governor Wise made two drafts, 
— the first even more creditable to him than the one sent, for 
in it he wrote: "If duty and law permitted, you should have 
the lives of your husband and sons instead of their mortal 
remains;" and that his feelings as a man "yearned toward her 
as a wife and a mother, a woman afiflicted." The letter Mrs. 
Brown received contained these characteristic paragraphs: 

" I am happy, Madam, that you seem to have the wisdom and 
virtue to appreciate my position of duty. Would to God that 'pub- 
lic considerations could avert his doom,' for The Omniscient knows 
that I take not the slightest pleasure in the execution of any whom 
the laws condemn. May He have mercy on the erring and the 
afflicted. 

" Enclosed is an order to Major Genl. Wm. B. Taliaferro, in com- 
mand at Chariestown, Va. to deliver to your order the mortal re- 
mains of your husband * when all shall be over;' to be delivered to 
your agent at Harper's Ferry; and if you attend the reception in 
person, to guard you sacredly in your solemn mission. 
" With tenderness and truth, I am, 

" Very respectfully your humble servant, 

Henry A. Wise."*^^ 

On the 30th, Mrs. Brown, in response to the letter already 
quoted, was at Harper's Ferry, accompanied by Mr. and 
Mrs. McKim and Hector Tyndale, a rising young lawyer of 
Philadelphia. Governor Wise ordered by telegraph that she, 
alone, be permitted to visit her husband the next day, on 
condition of returning to Harper's Ferry that evening and 
awaiting there the delivery of his body.^^^ A sergeant and 
eight men of the Fauquier Cavalry escorted her carriage on 
the long, dreary ride to Chariestown on December i, and a 



550 JOHN BROWN 

militia captain sat beside her.^i^ At half-past three o'clock 
they were in Charlestown, and a few minutes later began 
that tragic last interview between husband and wife which 
so deeply stirred the onlooking North. But, as was to be ex- 
pected from two such self-controlled characters as John and 
Mary Brown, they in nowise gave way to their grief, save for 
a minute or two as they met. Mrs. Brown had had her mo- 
ment of uncontrollable anguish in Philadelphia, when Gov- 
ernor Wise's letter came to her with its final assurance that 
there was no hope for her husband's life.^^^ Now husband 
and wife sat down to their final communion, — primarily to 
discuss his will, her future, the education of their children. 
When the coming event was touched upon, and her courage 
began to fail, he assured her that while it would be pleasant 
to live longer, he was content to go, for, after all, go he must 
sooner or later. 

When, however. It became evening and John Brown heard 
that they must part soon, he begged that she be permitted 
to pass the night with him. But the commanding general, 
Taliaferro, had no option in the face of the Governor's ex- 
plicit instructions. It was the only time in all his confinement 
that this great prisoner gave way to anger or passion. It 
availed him not; and when the parting came, both husband 
and wife "exhibited a composure, either feigned or real, that 
was truly surprising." In Captain Avis's room Mrs. Brown's 
tears came freely, and with her husband's last blessing ringing 
in her ears, she began the long, dark ride back to her waiting 
friends in Harper's Ferry. ^^^ They were practically prisoners, 
these kind souls, for when they first went out to walk the 
streets, a bullet whistled in the air, to Hector Tyndale's espe- 
cial annoyance. For he little dreamed that twenty-six months 
later, on February 7, 1862, to him would fall the military duty, 
while major of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania Infantr}^ of 
burning nearly all of Harper's Ferry, save John Brown's fort. 
So quickly did time then bring Its revenges! 

With his wife gone, John Brown, whose will had been drawn 
for him by Andrew Hunter, ^^^ devoted himself for a time to 
his last letters and to a brief but calm sleep. He had already 
sent a final letter to his family, and, among half a dozen other 
last farewells, this note: 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 551 

Charlestown, Jefferson Co Va. 29th Nov. 1859. 
Mrs George L Stearns 

Boston Mass 
My Dear Friend 

No letter I have received since my imprisonment here, has given 
me more satisfaction, or comfort; than yours of the 8th inst. I am 
quite cheerful: & was never more happy. Have only time [to] write 
you a word. May God forever reward you & all yours. My love to 
All who love their neighbours. I have asked to be spared from having 
any mock; or hypocritical prayers made over me, when I am publicly 
murdered : & that my only religious attendants be poor little, dirty, 
ragged, bare headed, & barefooted Slave boys ; & Girls ; led by some old 
grey headed Slave Mother. 

Farewell. Farewell. 

Your Friend 

John Brown ^^" 

The letter to his family read in part thus: 

Charlestown, Prison, Jefferson Co, Va. 
30th Nov 1859 
My Dearly Beloved Wife, Sons: & Daughters, everyone 

As I now begin what is probably the last letter I shall ever write 
to any of you; I conclude to write you all at the same time. ... I 
am waiting the hour of my public murder with great composure of 
mind, & cheerfulness: feeling the strongest assurance that in no 
other possible way could I be used to so much advance the cause 
of God; & of humanity: & that nothing that either I or all my family 
have sacrifised or suffered : 7vill be lost. The reflection that a ivise & 
merciful, as well as just &' holy God: rules not only the affairs of this 
world; but of all worlds; is a rock to set our feet upon; under all 
circumstances: even those more severely /rymg ones: into which our 
own follies; & rongs have placed us. I have now no doubt but that 
our seeming disaster: will ultimately result in the most glorious 
success. So my dear shattered & broken family be of good cheer; & 
believe & trust in God; ''with all your heart & with all your soul;" 
for "he doeth All things well." Do not feel ashamed on my account; 
nor for one moment despair of the cause; or grow weary of well doing. 
I bless God; I never felt stronger confidence in the certain and near 
approach of a bright Morning; & a glorious day ; than I have felt; 
& do now feel; since my confinement here. I am endeavouring to 
"return" like a "poor Prodigal" as I am, to my Father: against 
whom I have always sined: in the hope ; that he may kindly, & for- 
givingly "meet me: though a verry great way off." Oh my dear Wife 
& Children would "to God" you could know how I have been 
"travelling in birth for you " all : that no one of you "may fail of the 
grace of God, through Jesus Christ:" that no one of you may be 
blind to the truth: & glorious "light of his word," in which Life; 



552 JOHN BROWN 

& Immortality; are brought to light. I beseech you every one to 
make the bible your dayly & Nightly study ; with a childlike honest, 
candid, teachable spirit : out of love and respect for your Husband ; 
& Father : & I beseech the God of my Fathers ; to open all your eyes 
to a discovery of the truth. You cannot imagine how much you may 
soon need the consolations of the Christian religion. 

Circumstances like my own; for more than a month past; con- 
vince me beyound all doubt : of our great need: of something more to 
rest our hopes on; than merely our own vague theories framed up, 
while our prejudices are excited ; or our vanity worked up to its high- 
est pitch. Oh do not trust your eternal all uppon the boisterous 
Ocean, without ei'en a Helm ; or Compass to aid you in steering. I do 
not ask any oi you; to throw away your reason: I only ask you, to 
make a candid & sober use of your reason : My dear younger children 
will you listen to the last poor admonition of one who can only love 
you? Oh be determined at once to give your whole hearts to God ; & 
let nothing shake; or alter; that resolution. You need have no fear 
oj regreting it. Do not be vain; and thoughtless: but sober minded. 
And let me entreat you all to love the whole remnant of our once great 
family: "with a pure heart fervently.'' Try to build again: your 
broken walls: & to make the utmost of every stone that is left. No- 
thing can so tend to make life a blessing as the consciousness that you 
love : &f are beloved : & "love ye the stranger " still. It is ground of the 
utmost comfort to my mind : to know that so many of you as have 
had the opportunity ; have given full proof of your fidelity to the 
great family of man. Be faithful until death. From the exercise of 
habitual love to man : it cannot be very hard : to learn to love his 
maker. I must yet insert a reason for my firm belief in the Divine 
inspiration of the Bible: notwithstanding I am (perhaps naturally) 
skeptical: (certainly not, credulous.) I wish you all to consider it 
most thoroughly ; when you read the blessed book ; & see whether you 
can not discover such evidence yourselves. It is the purity of heart, 
feeling, or motive : as well as word, & action which is everywhere in- 
sisted on ; that distinguish it from all other teachings ; that commends 
it to my conscience: whether my heart be "willing, & obedient" or 
not. The inducements that it holds out; are another reason of my 
conviction of its truth: & genuineness : that I cannot here omit; in 
this my last argument for the Bible. Eternal life ; is that my soul is 
''panting after'' this moment. I mention this ; as reason for endeavour- 
ing to leave a valuable copy of the Bible to be carefully preserved in 
remembrance of me: to so many of my posterity; instead of some 
other things of equal cost. 

I beseech you all to live in habitual contentment with verry 
moderate circumstances: & gains,- of worldly store: & most earnestly 
to teach this : to your children ; & Childrens Children ; after you : by 
example : as well ; as precept. Be determined to know by experience 
as soon as may be : whether bible instruction is of Divine origin or 
not; ivhich says; "Owe no man anything but to love one another." 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 553 

John Rogers wrote to his children, "Abhor the arrant whore of 
Rome." John Brown writes to his children to abhor with undiing 
hatred, also: that "sum of all vilainies;" Slavery. Remember that 
"he that is sloiv to anger is better than the mighty : and he that ruleth 
his spirit; than he that taketh a city." Remember also: that "they 
that be wise shall shme : and they that turn many to righteousness : 
as the stars forever; & ever." And now dearly beloved Farewell, 
To God & the word of his grace I comme[n]d you all. 
Your Affectionate Husband & Father 

John Brown ^^^ 

The last night was quickly over; with the coming of the 
dawn men were stirring, for this day was to see a "judicial 
murder" which, more than any other in the country's history, 
thrilled it from ocean to ocean. He who was to pay the pen- 
alty was early at his Bible, in which, before bestowing it upon 
a confectioner who had been kind to him, he had marked the 
passages which had most influenced his life.^" Then there 
was still another letter to be written to his wife: 

Charlestown, Jefferson Co, Va. 
2d Decern, 1859 

My Dear Wife 

I have time to enclose the within : & the above : which I forgot 
yesterday: & to bid you another Farewell: "be of good cheer" and 
God Allmighty bless, save, comfort, guide, & keep; you, to "the 
end." 

Your Affectionate Husband 

John Brown. 

The enclosures read thus: 

"To be inscribed on the old family Monument at North Elba. 

"Oliver Brown born 1839 was killed at Harpers ferry Va 

Nov 17th 1859. 

"Watson Brown, born 1835 was wounded at Harpers ferry 

Nov 17th and died Nov 19th 1859. -^. 

" (My Wife can) supply blank dates to above 

"John Brown born May 9th 1800 was executed at Charlestown, 
Va, December 2d 1859." 

"Charlestown, Jefferson Co, Va, 2d Decem.1859. It is my desire 
that my W^ife have all my personal property not previously disposed 
of by me; & the entire use of all my landed property during her 
natural life; & that after her death the proceeds of such land be 
equally divided between all my then living Children: & that what 
would be a Childs share be given to the Children of each of my_ Two 
sons ; who fell at Harpers ferry ; Va: & that a Childs share be divided 



554 JOHN BROWN ' 

among the children of any of my noiv living Children who may die 
before their Mother (my present much beloved Wife.) No formal 
will: can be of use when my expressed wishes; are made known to 
my dutiful; and dearly beloved family. 

John Brown " ^" * 

And while he was thus using his pen, the prison guards who 
should have hated were moving automatically, silently, with 
bowed heads, lest the tears so near to welling up should over- 
flow. The majesty of death had now laid its spell upon them, 
as the dominating personality of the man they guarded had 
won from them a regard they wished not to bestow. To 
each quivering guard John Brown now gave a book; to his 
trusty jailer his silver watch. ^24 Xhen, after a few minutes 
alone on his knees in prayer, it was "God bless you, my men," 
and "May we all meet in Heaven," to those who had followed 
him even to the verge of the grave — save two. To John 
E. Cook he was reproachful because of some phrases in Cook's 
confession which seemed to his leader untruthful and mis- 
leading. To Hazlett he said not a word, for neither he nor any 
of the other raiders would admit that this was one of their 
chosen company, in the vain hope thus to cheat the scaffold 
of his young life.^^^ 

And then John Brown stood on the porch of the jail, the 
last long journey begun, with lieutenants and guards by his 
side. No little slave-child was held up for the benison of his 
lips, for none but soldiery was near and the street was full of 
marching men. " I had no idea that Governor Wise considered 
my execution so important," burst from his lips.i^s But even 
in that supreme moment the race for which his life was forfeit 
was not forgotten. For, as he left his cell, he handed to one 
who stood near this final, wonderfully prophetic and imper- 
ishable message to the "million hearts" of his countrymen, 
which, as Wendell Phillips said, had been "melted by that 
old Puritan soul:" 

"I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this 
guilty land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I 
now think : vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed ; 
it might be done." ^" 

* He had already determined, with absolute equanimity of spirit, the kind of 
coffin in which he was to be buried. For his other wills, see Appendix. 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 555 

To this true prophet on the brink of eternity it now ap- 
pears that nothing was concealed on that last morning. Must 
he not again have read the onrushing future as he surveyed 
the troops massed about the scalTold on that clear and warm 
and beautiful December day? For behind his gibbet stood 
"Stonewall" Jackson, some of whose young artillerymen, in 
the cadet red and gray of the Virginia Military Institute, were, 
within three years' time, while still tender lads, to offer up 
their lives in defence of the very valley upon whose beauties 
they now gazed; Jackson himself was to give his life's blood 
to purge the nation of its crimes ; and through the loss of his 
high-spirited and gifted son then in the ranks of the Richmond 
company, Governor Wise was soon to know what John Brown, 
the father, had suffered in the engine house at Harper's Ferry. 
There, on a snow-white horse, rode to and fro Captain Turner 
Ashby, of knightly bearing and superb horsemanship, destined, 
less than three years later, to die a general of Confederate cav- 
alry, ^^s ^^(-1 {^ ^)jQ closed ranks stood now, shoulder to shoul- 
der, the colonels and generals of many a veteran legion-to-be, 
whose blood was soon to besprinkle Virginia from end to end. 
Here was forecast, too, the crudest blood-letting of all the 
long and ghastly line; for, in a Richmond company, rifle on 
shoulder, stood the sinister figure of J. Wilkes Booth, ^-^ than 
whom no single American ever dealt a wickeder blow to his 
country. If John Brown's prophetic sight wandered across 
the hills to the scene of his brief Virginia battle, it must 
have beheld his generous captor, Robert E. Lee, again in mili- 
tary charge of Harper's Ferry, wholly unwitting that upon 
his shoulders was soon to rest the fate of a dozen confederated 
States. And if the prisoner's spiritual glance carried thus far, 
it must also have found its way through the flimsy walls 
of the Wager House, into a room where waited a little group 
around a heart-broken woman with "hands locked, eyes 
streaming, hearts uplifted in prayer," waiting for the hour 
to strike which should tell them that John Brown was beyond 
the reach of enemies and friends alike."" 

His visions did not, however, prevent his drinking in the 
rare charm of the landscape. "This is a beautiful country. 
I never had the pleasure of seeing it before," fell from his 
lips, 1^1 as he came upon the field, seated on his coffin, in a 

/ 



556 JOHN BROWN 

wagon drawn by two white horses, and preceded by three 
companies of infantry. There were fifteen hundred soldiers 
present to see that this one old man was hanged. But, watch 
him as they might, they could detect no sign of flinching. 
With alacrity the despised Abolitionist climbed down from 
the wagon and ascended the scaffold to take one last, longing 
glance at the Blue Ridge Mountains which had to him spelled 
liberty for the enslaved these many long years. With cheer- 
fulness he shook the hands of those near him and bade others 
adieu. Not when the cap was drawn over his head, his arms 
pinioned at the elbows, the noose slipped around his neck, 
was there a single waver. Even in all the unpicturesqueness of 
his ill-fitting suit and trousers and loose carpet-slippers, John 
Brown was a wonderfully dignified and impressive figure on 
the scaffold, because of the serenity and calmness of his spirit. 
The solemnity of it all moved every one, from the boyish 
cadets to the oldest soldiers. The most deeply religious man 
among the troops, "Stonewall" Jackson, was shaken like 
the rest, and "sent up a fervent petition" to Heaven that 
John Brown might be saved. Awful was the thought, to him, 
that this man about to die "might receive the sentence 'De- 
part, ye wicked, into the everlasting fire.'" ^^^ But no such 
thought was in the mind of John Brown. His soul was bent 
on high, facing in confidence the future. While the three 
companies that had been his escort deployed slowly into 
place, he stood erect as a soldier of the Lord. As if to test his 
courage to the end, they were a long twelve minutes filing 
into place, while John Brown showed Virginia how a brave 
man could die. 

"The sheriff asked him," writes Colonel J. T. L. Preston, 
who stood hard by, "if he should give him a private signal, 
before the fatal moment. He replied in a voice that sounded 
to me unnaturally natural — so composed was its tone and 
so distinct its articulation — that 'it did not matter to him, 
if only they would not keep him too long waiting.'" But the 
little-drilled troops took forever, it seemed, in moving into 
place, — not, as was alleged in the North, to try the prisoner's 
nerves, but because the exact formation had been ordained 
in advance and there was no one thoughtful or daring enough 
to give the signal before it was complete. But come the word 



BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 557 

did at last. A single blow of the hatchet in the sheriff's hand 
and, 

"the man of strong and bloody hand, of fierce passions, of iron will, 
of wonderful vicissitudes, — the terrible partisan of Kansas — the 
capturer of the United States Arsenal at Harper's F'erry — the 
would-be Catiline of the South — the demigod of the Abolitionists — 
the man execrated and lauded — damned and prayed for . . . John 
Brown, was hanging between heaven and earth." ^^^ ^ 

The painful silence that followed was broken by Colonel 
Preston's solemnly declaring: "So perish all such enemies of 
Virginia ! All such enemies of the Union ! All such foes of the 
human race!" It was said without a shade of animosity, 
without a note of exultation; but the blind man was not he 
who swung from the rope above. For his eyes had seen, long 
before his light had failed, the coming of th'e blue-clad masses 
of the North who were to make a mockery of Colonel Pres- 
ton's words and strike down the destroying tyranny of slavery, 
to free Virginia from the most fateful of self-imposed bonds. 
As the troops now solemnly tramped away, with all decorum 
and without any demonstrations, in far-off Albany they were 
firing one hundred guns as the dirge of the martyr. ^^^ And 
meanwhile, John Brown's soul was marching on, and all in 
the North who had a conscience and a heart knew that John 
A. Andrew voiced the truth when he declared that "whether 
the enterprise of John Brown and his associates in Virginia 
was wise or foolish, right or wrong; I only know that, whether 
the enterprise itself was the one or the other, John Brown 
himself is right." ^^^ 



CHAPTER XV 
YET SHALL HE LIVE 

"There need be no tears for him, for few men die so happily, 
so satisfied with time, place and circumstance as did he," 
wrote Samuel Dowries in the Springfield Republican, the day 
when John Brown's body had hung for thirty-seven minutes 
on the scaffold. Perhaps at the very hour v^Tien he penned 
this editorial, only forty-four days after John Brown left 
Harper's Ferry in chains, yet about to shake the nation to its 
depths, Brown's lifeless body was taken back to the scene of 
his raid and delivered to his wife, — not, however, until Hec- 
tor Tyndale had insisted on the opening of the cofiin to make 
sure that no other body had been substituted, as some had 
insinuated would be the case.^ But the Virginians had done 
more than keep faith ; they had furnished, by order of General 
Taliaferro, a body-guard of fifteen civilians, who volunteered 
to see that no harm befell the body in its simple pine coffin 
during its brief trip from Charlestown to Harper's Ferry, on 
a special train of two cars.^ The very courtesy and human- 
ity of this action revealed the impossibility of making of this 
execution the ignominious hanging of a wicked criminal. 
The Virginians were willing, too, that Mrs. Brown should take 
with her the bodies of Oliver and Watson Brown; but the 
latter's remains had been taken to the Winchester Medi- 
cal College for preservation as an anatomical specimen, and 
Mrs. Brown felt herself unequal to the task of identifying 
the body of Oliver. ^ His remains, with those of the eight other 
raiders who died in Harper's Ferry, were buried in two large 
boxes by James Mansfield, to whom the county gave five 
dollars for his services. Almost at the water's edge of the 
Shenandoah, in an unmarked grave, he interred them, wrap- 
ping them first in the blanket-shawls they had worn over their 
shoulders as they went to their death in Harper's Ferry. ^ Here 
they lay while the hosts in Blue and Gray marched and fought 
over them.* 

* Until 1899, when, with Mansfield's aid, the bodies were moved to North Elba 
by Dr. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, of Washington, and others interested, and 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 559 

All was quiet enough at Harper's Ferry when the funeral 
party started for Philadelphia, but the North at that hour 
was ringing with the news and echoing with protests. At Ra- 
venna, Ohio, at seven o'clock there was a meeting of sympa- 
thy, to which were invited all "who hate oppression and all 
its vengeful, savage barbarities and who sympathize with the 
devoted Martyrs of Liberty." ^ In Cleveland, Melodeon Hall 
was draped in mourning for a meeting attended by fourteen 
hundred persons; and as the train bearing Brown's body 
moved on toward Baltimore, this gathering solemnly resolved 
that his execution "for a conscientious observance of the law 
of brotherhood as inculcated by Jesus Christ, and the law of 
freedom as taught by Thomas Jefferson," proved that "the 
State of Virginia under the lead of Henry A. Wise" was a 
"contemptible caricature of the Old Dominion in the days 
of George Washington. . . ." ^ In Philadelphia they had not 
waited as long; a public prayer meeting was held at the hour 
of the execution, only, however, to be broken up by a number 
of Southern medical students, with whom the public openly 
sympathized.'^ In New York, Rochester, Syracuse, Fitch- 
burg, Concord (Massachusetts), Plymouth, New Bedford, 
Concord (New Hampshire), and Manchester, meetings were 
held, and in many places the bells were tolled. 

But it was in Boston that the excitement reached its height. 
Motions to adjourn in honor of Brown were defeated in both 
houses of the Massachusetts Legislature, — by only three 
votes in the Senate, while in the House the vote stood 141 
to 6.^ That night, however, Tremont Temple was filled to 
the doors by one of the greatest meetings of the many notable 
ones it had sheltered. When the doors were opened, men 
and women were swept in, some without touching their feet to 
the ground. The meeting, held under the auspices of the Ameri- 
can Anti-slavery Society, was presided over by Samuel E. 

reinterred by the side of their commander with those of Stevens and Hazlett, 
Watson Brown's body having previously been brought there. The changed opin- 
ion of their country appears from the fact that whereas Dauphin Thompson and 
Jeremiah G. Anderson were killed by United States marines in 1859, United 
States infantrymen of the Twenty-sixth Regiment fired a salute over their graves 
and those of their associates at North Elba in 1899. The Rev. Joshua Young, who 
read the service over John Brown's body in 1859, again officiated; Bishop Henry 
C. Potter also took part in the ceremonies. 



560 JOHN BROWN 

Sewall. Among the many placards which decorated the hall 
was one bearing these words of Lafayette: "I never would 
have drawn my sword In the cause of America, if I could have 
conceived that thereby I was helping to found a nation of 
slaves." William Lloyd Garrison declared that the meeting 
was called to witness John Brown's resurrection, and read 
Brown's address to the court when sentenced. He said in 
the course of his speech: 

"Nevertheless, I am a non-resistant, and I not only desire, but 
have labored unremittingly to effect, the peaceful abolition of 
slavery, by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the slave- 
holder ; yet, as a peace man — an ' ultra ' peace man — I am pre- 
pared to say: 'Success to every slave insurrection at the South, and 
in every slave country.' And I do not see how I compromise or 
stain my peace profession in making that declaration. . . . Rather 
than see men wearing their chains in a cowardly and servile spirit, I 
would, as an advocate of peace, much rather see them breaking the 
head of the tyrant with their chains. Give me, as a non-resistant, 
Bunker Hill, and Lexington, and Concord, rather than the cowardice 
and servility of a Southern slave-plantation." ^ 

The size and enthusiasm of this meeting were the more 
remarkable because there had been, just two weeks earlier, 
on November 19, a gathering in the same place in aid of John 
Brown's family. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Rev. Jacob M. 
Manning, Wendell Phillips and John A. Andrew spoke, the 
last named also presiding and thereby apparently endanger- 
ing his political future. It was on this occasion that he ut- 
tered his famous sentiment about John Brown's being right, 
and declared that the conflict between freedom and slavery 
was as irresistible as that between right and wrong. Wendell 
Phillips's oratory was at its best, for to his deep feeling about 
slavery itself w^as added all the chivalry of his generous, high- 
spirited, yet aristocratic nature. Said Emerson : 

" It is easy to see what a favorite he [John Brown] will be with his- 
tory, which plays such pranks with temporary reputations. Nothing 
can resist the sympathy which all elevated minds must feel with 
Brown, and through them the whole civilized world; and, if he must 
suffer, he must drag official gentlemen into an immortality most 
undesirable, and of which they have already some disagreeable fore- 
bodings." '' 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 561 

Not often Is it given to a condemned man to have the 
opinion of posterity thus interpreted to him by such great 
souls as Andrew, PhilHps and Emerson, whose words, pene- 
trating as they did to the prisoner of Charlestown, must have 
strengthened his already wonderful composure. 

When the train which bore John Brown's body and its 
guardians arrived at Philadelphia, about one o'clock on the 
day after the execution, it was met by a reception committee 
headed by Dr. William H. Furness, who, with Hector Tyn- 
dale, led Mrs. Brown away.^^ But the excitement in the 
great crowd on all sides of the station was so intense that it 
was not safe to take the body to the undertaker's, as had been 
planned. An empty hearse driven hastily away dispersed 
a part of the crowd as effectually as a platoon of police, and 
then the coffin was placed in a furniture car and carried to 
the Walnut Street wharf, whence it was taken by boat to 
New York on its way to North Elba.^^ Thither Wendell 
Phillips and J. Miller McKim escorted the body, as well as 
Mrs. Brown; at every town at which they tarried, Troy, 
Rutland, Vergennes and Westport, bells tolled and the citi- 
zens appeared, to express their sympathy to Mrs. Brown. '^ 
At Elizabethtown, the last resting-place for a night, a guard 
of honor watched the coffin in the court-house until dawn. 
Thence over almost impassable roads for the twenty-five miles 
to North Elba, which John Brown had himself so often cov- 
ered on foot, with the elements against him, the funeral party 
journeyed, all day of Wednesday, December 7. The next 
day, in the early afternoon, they laid all that was mortal of 
John Brown in a grave by the great boulder near his still 
unfinished house, — - the huge stone being then, as to-day, the 
best possible monument to the native ruggedness and stead- 
fastness of his character. Near-by, the towering White Face 
Mountain rises in all its grandeur, and well beyond, the tallest 
peak in the Adirondacks stands sentinel over the grave. 

The women of his family, with Salmon Brown, the sole 
son who dared be present, and Henry Thompson, were the 
chief mourners. ^^ Four widows were there, Mrs. Brown and 
the wives of Oliver and Watson Brown — Oliver's soon to 
die with the infant its father had not lived to see — and of 
William Thompson. The Rev. Joshua Young had come from 



562 JOHN BROWN 

his pulpit in Burlington, Vermont, to read from the Scriptures 
and to pray at the grave, for which service he was promptly 
deprived of his church. Mr. McKim once more bore his tes- 
timony, and then, in the place of William Lloyd Garrison, 
whose absence from Boston prevented his receiving in time 
the invitation to attend and speak, Wendell Phillips, the 
matchless orator of the Abolition cause, addressed the little 
gathering in the crowded house. Said he of John Brown: 

" Marvellous old man ! . . . He has abolished slavery in Virginia. 
You may say this is too much. Our neighbors are the last men we 
know. The hours that pass us are the ones v;e appreciate the least. 
Men walked Boston streets, when night fell on Bunker's Hill, and 
pitied Warren, saying, 'Foolish man! Thrown away his life! Why 
did n't he measure his means better?' Now we see him standing 
colossal on that blood-stained sod, and severing that day the tie 
which bound Boston to Great Britain. That night George HI 
ceased to rule in New England. History will date Virginia Eman- 
cipation from Harper's Ferry. True, the slave is still there. So, 
when the tempest uproots a pine on your hills, it looks green for 
months — a year or two. Still, it is timber, not a tree. John Brown 
has loosened the roots of the slave system; it only breathes, — it 
does not Hve, — hereafter." 

And as the cofhn was lowered, members of a neighboring 
colored family, that of Lyman Epps, sang some of the hymns 
for which he had cared, and John Brown was at rest among 
the negroes he had labored for, near the women of his family 
who had toiled and suffered anguish for him and his cause, in 
the shadow of the great mountains he had loved. 

But the meetings of sympathy and grief did not stop with 
the funeral. They went on for one reason or another, — the 
raising of funds for the family was one, — and soon there 
were gatherings of protest and denunciation by pro-slavery 
sympathizers. The great Cooper LInion meeting in New York, 
addressed by Wendell Phillips, on December 15, was inter- 
rupted throughout by men sent there by denunciations of it 
in the Herald. On the same day, an anti-slavery convention 
in Philadelphia devoted itself to the Charlestown martyr.^^ 
A week earlier, a large Union meeting in Faneuil Hall, in 
Boston, had repudiated the raid, acclaimed the Union, and 
boldly asserted the right of Virginia to her peculiar institution. 




THE .\UKiii LLLiA I'AK.MliuL .-E 




JOliX BK 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 563 

An ex-Governor of the State, Levi Lincoln, presided, and the 
names of four other ex-Governors and some of the best known 
men in Boston were on the list of vice-presidents.^^ The 
Union meeting in New York, on December 19, adopted a reso- 
lution denouncing "all acts or inflammatory appeals which 
intend or tend to make this LTnion less perfect, or to jeopard 
or disturb its domestic tranquillity, or to mar the spirit of 
harmony, compromise and concession upon which the Union 
was formed by our fathers.-. . ," Another resolution read: 
"That we regard the recent outrage at Harper's Ferry as a 
crime — not only against the State of Virginia, but against 
the Union itself. . . . That, in our opinion, the subject of 
slavery has been too long mingled with party politics." 
Among the speakers were Charles O'Conor, ex-Governor 
Washington Hunt, John A. Dix, Professor Ormsby M. 
Mitchel, later a distinguished Northern general, and the Rev. 
Dr. George W. Bethune. Mayor Daniel F. Tieman was in the 
chair. There were three overflow meetings in the street. ^^ Sim- 
ilar meetings were held in many another town and city, of those 
who wanted to preserve the Union of the States by keeping 
silent on the slavery question, and the New York Democracy 
was bitter in its denunciations of the "Northern Abolition- 
ists," who now stood convicted of having "long contemplated 
a war of races," and of having, as the Brown raid revealed, 
"slowly and deliberately" plotted to that end.^^ Individuals 
of prominence, too, went on record in those days. Emerson, 
in his ignorance of Pottawatomie, had spoken of Brown be- 
fore his execution as "that new saint, than whom none purer 
or more brave was ever led by love of men into conflict and 
death, — the new saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who, 
if he shall suffer, will make the gallows glorious like the 
cross." Thoreau felt similarly. Longfellow wrote in his diary 
on the day of the hanging: "This will be a great day in 
our history; the date of a new Revolution, — quite as much 
needed as the old one. Even now as I write, they are leading 
old John Brown to execution in Virginia for attempting to 
rescue slaves! This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind, 
which will come soon." ^^ 

George William Curtis felt that John Brown was "not 
buried but planted. He will spring up a hundred-fold. I do 



564 JOHN BROWN 

not wonder at the solemn pomp of his death. They would 
have none but a Southern-made rope to hang him, but that 
rope had two ends — one around the neck of a man, the other 
around the system [of slavery]." ^^ "Let the American State 
hang his body and the American Church damn his soul. Still, 
the blessing of such as are ready to perish will fall on him, and 
the universal justice of the Infinitely Perfect God will make 
him welcome home. The road to heaven is as short from 
the gallows as from the throne," wrote Theodore Parker.^i 
"The day before yesterday old Brow^n was executed," wrote 
Francis Lieber to a friend. "He died like a man and Virginia 
fretted like an old woman. . . . The deed w^as irrational, 
but it will be historical. Virginia has come out of it damaged, 
I think. She has forced upon mankind the idea that slavery 
must be, in her own opinion, but a rickety thing. . . ." 22 

The politicians, too, were quick to give their opinions. 
Abraham Lincoln, at Troy, Kansas, on December 2, 1859, 
remarked: "Old John Brown has been executed for treason 
against a State. We cannot object, even though he agreed 
with us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse vio- 
lence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail him nothing that 
he might think himself right." ^3 On February 27, i860, 
speaking more at length in Cooper LTnion, he declared: 

"John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrec- 
tion. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among 
slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so 
absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough 
it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with 
the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings 
and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people 
till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. 
He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own 
execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's 
attempt at Harper's Ferry were in their philosophy precisely the 
same." ^* 

Lincoln's great rival for the Republican nomination for 
the Presidency, William H. Seward, did not mince matters. 
All good citizens, he said, would agree "that this attempt to 
execute an unlawful purpose in Virginia by invasion, involv- 
ing servile war, was an act of sedition and treason, and crim- 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 565 

inal in just the extent that it affected the public peace and 
was destructive of human happiness and life." But, besides 
lamenting the deaths of innocent citizens, "slain from an 
ambush and by surprise," Mr. Seward felt that the execu- 
tions of the offenders themselves might be thought pitiable, 
"although necessary and just, because they acted under de- 
lirium, which blinded their judgments to the real nature 
of their criminal enterprise." ^^ In Massachusetts, Edward 
Everett and Caleb Gushing voiced their protests and painted 
the horrors of servile insurrections, in the Boston Union meet- 
ing of December 8, in which Gushing called attention, in vain, 
to Brown's blood guilt on the Pottawatomie. Public opinion 
in the North was in no mood to believe ill of John Brown, 
and even in the South his previous record made far less im- 
pression than did the manner of his dying. None the less, 
both Everett and Gushing roundly denounced the lawlessness 
of the raid, and the latter did not hesitate to insinuate that 
Phillips, Garrison, Parker and the other anti-slavery leaders 
were as insane as Gerrit Smith. 

Stephen A. Douglas, the author of the vicious Kansas- 
Nebraska act, but for which there would probably have been 
no raid on Harper's Ferry, who was then nearing the prema- 
ture ending of his remarkable career, touched upon Brown's 
taking horses belonging to citizens of Missouri. Naturally, 
he beheld in Brown a "notorious man who has recently suf- 
fered death for his crimes," -^ and he was glad to saddle upon 
the Republican party the responsibility for those crimes. As 
for the Southerners themselves, the attitude of their leaders 
is easily conceivable. In Jefferson Davis's eyes, John Brown 
deservedly "suffered a felon's death," for he came "to Incite 
slaves to murder helpless women and children." " Robert 
Toombs was fiery enough to suit even Governor Wise, for 
in the Senate, in the following January, he thus talked of 
civil war: 

"Never permit this Federal government to pass Into the hands of 
the black Republican party. It has already declared war against 
you and your institutions. It every day commits acts of war against 
you : it has already compelled you to arm for your defence. . . . De- 
fend yourselves! The enemy is at your door, wait not to meet him at 
your hearthstone ; meet him at the doorsill, and drive him from the 



566 JOHN BROWN 

Temple of Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a 
common ruin." ^^ 

In the course of an excited debate in the Virginia House 
of Delegates, five days after John Brown's death, General 
James L. Kemper, one of the most talented and influential 
members of the Legislature, was almost as bloodthirsty: 
"All Virginia . . . should stand forth as one man and say 
to fanaticism, in her own language, whenever you advance 
a hostile foot upon our soil, we will welcome you with bloody 
hands and to hospitable graves." ^^ 

A similar vein was that of a State Senator of Mississippi, 
Brown by name, to the Legislature of his State: 

" I have said of Mr. Seward and his followers, that they are our 
enemies and we are theirs. He has declared that there is an 'irre- 
pressible conflict' between us. So there is! He and his followers 
have declared war upon us, and I am for fighting it out to the bitter 
end. It is clear that one or the other must go to the wall, and the 
sooner the better." ^^ 

In the view of Senator Mason, of Virginia: 

"John Brown's invasion was condemned [in the North] only be- 
cause it failed. But in view of the sympathy for him in the North 
and the persistent efforts of the sectional party there to interfere 
with the rights of the South, it was not at all strange that the 
Southern States should deem it proper to arm themselves and pre- 
pare for any contingency that might arise." ^* 

In his annual message to Congress, President Buchanan 
took the unusual view that while many feared that the Har- 
per's Ferry outbreak was but a symptom of an "incurable 
disease in the public mind," it was in his opinion likely to 
be altogether a blessing in its after effects. He informed the 
country of his belief that: 

" the events at Harper's Ferry, by causing the people to pause 
and reflect upon the possible peril to their cherished institutions, 
will be the means, under Providence, of allaying the existing excite- 
ment and preventing further outbreaks of a similar character. They 
will resolve that the Constitution and the Union shall not be en- 
dangered by rash counsels, knowing that should ' the silver cord be 
loosed or the golden bowl be broken ... at the fountain,' human 
power could never reunite the scattered and hostile fragments." 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 567 

The Joint Committee of the General Assembly of Virginia, 
which investigated the raid, held a different opinion when It 
reported, on January 26, i860; for it felt that as long as the 
Republican party 

"maintains its present sectional organization, and inculcates its 
present doctrines, the South can expect nothing less than a succes- 
sion of such traitorous attempts to subvert its institutions and to 
incite its slaves to rapine and murder. The crimes of John Brown 
were neither more nor less than practical illustrations of the doc- 
trines of the leaders of the Republican party. The very existence 
of such a party is an offence to the whole South." 

The Committee offered a resolution that Virginia should 
put its militia on a war-service basis, and then, without vio- 
lating the Federal Constitution, achieve Its commercial in- 
dependence of the North by establishing its own manufac- 
tures and promoting direct trade with foreign countries. ^^ 
Only nine days earlier, the General Assembly, had listened 
to an address of O. G. Memminger, special commissioner 
from South Carolina to urge Virginia to join the conference 
of Southern States which South Carolina was calling, to con- 
sider and act upon the grave situation created by the "In- 
creasing violence in new and alarming forms" of the attacks 
upon slavery. "Every village bell," he said, "which tolled 
Its solemn note at the execution of Brown, proclaims to the 
South the approbation of that village of Insurrection and 
servile war." Harper's Ferry, he declared, "proved that the 
North and South are standing In battle array." ^^ Similar 
sentiments were voiced by Governor Gist, of South Carolina, 
In his annual message to the Legislature. For him the Rubi- 
con had been crossed. ^^ 

In marked contrast to this, the utterance of one Northern 
Governor, Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa, may be cited In this 
connection, since It was an accurate Interpretation of the 
opinions of the bulk of the plain people of the Middle West: 

"I cannot wonder at the most unfortunate and bloody occur- 
rence at Harper's Ferry. But while we may not wonder at it, we 
must condemn it. It was an act of war — of war against brothers, 
and in that a greater crime than the invaders of Cuba and Nicara- 
gua were guilty of; relieved to some extent of its guilt in the minds 
of many, by the fact that the blow was struck for freedom, and not 



568 JOHN BROWN 

for slavery. . . . While the great mass of our people utterly con- 
demn the act of John Brown, they feel and they express admiration 
and sympathy for the disinterestedness of purpose by which they 
believe he was governed, and for the unflinching courage and calm 
cheerfulness with which he met the consequences of his failure." 

But even this was not allowed to pass uncriticised by the 
Democratic minority in the Iowa Legislature, fifty-eight 
members of which voted that such sentiments were out of 
place in a gubernatorial message, and quite ''demagogic." ^^ 
As for the newspapers. North and South, they took sides 
about as they had prior to the execution. Curiously enough, 
some in the South turned on their friend the New York Her- 
ald, because it printed so many Abolitionist speeches and 
documents, the reprinting of which, it was felt, would do much 
harm. A collapsing economic system, slavery was more than 
ever afraid of free speech, as was shortly to be shown by its 
treatment of a powerful tract, 'The Impending Crisis,' from 
the pen of Hinton Rowan Helper, a poor white of Southern 
birth and breeding. Newspapers like the Richmond Enquirer, 
Charleston, South Carolina, Mercury, and the Baltimore 
Patriot, put remarkably little faith in the action taken by the 
various Northern anti-Brown meetings, which they suspected 
of being planned to appease the South for the moment. The 
Patriot believed that there was no sincerity and a great deal 
of political time-ser\4ng in the resolutions passed, favorable 
as they were to the South. ^^ The Enquirer was pleased with 
the words, but demanded "acts, acts." It sympathized with 
the remark of the London Times that "the first thing that 
strikes us is that the North did nothing until Brown was exe- 
cuted, and then it began to talk." " The Baltimore Su7i^^ 
found in the pro-Brown outbursts proof, hitherto lacking, 
that Brown was really a "representative man" of the North. 
"That the South can afford to live under a Government, 
the majority of whose subjects or citizens regard John Brown 
as a martyr and a Christian hero, rather than a murderer and 
robber, and act up to those sentiments, or countenance others 
in so doing, is a preposterous idea, as will be comprehended 
by all the North ere the end of the next session of Con- 
gress. ..." Naturally, newspapers of this stripe could only 
denounce as treason the editorial utterance of the Cleveland 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 569 

Daily Herald, ^'^ entitled "Hung be the Heavens with Black," 
which declared that "The gloom upon all hearts is too deep 
for words. Slavery drives John Brown to madness and then 
hangs him for that insanity. What a spectacle in a Chris- 
tian community ! — What a solemn day for this Christian 
nation!" But they found fresh comfort in the Portage, Ohio, 
Sentinel, published in John Brown's old home, which rejoiced 
in his proper penalty for his many crimes, for "his whole life 
. . . has been that of a lawbreaker.""*" Thus were Northern 
communities of a sudden clearly cleaved by the actions of 
twenty-two men in a Southern State. 

But nowhere were there abler editorials on the Southern 
side than appeared in the Baltimore American, which sin- 
cerely hoped that the death of John Brown would end the 
"confusion, excitement and parade" among the Virginians, 
which, it felt bound to say, had not "presented them in a very 
favorable aspect to the country." Uttering "a word of cau- 
tion to those who are inclined to attach importance to the 
fact that Brown met his fate with perfect calmness," the 
American rightly declared that in itself this proved nothing. 
"Pirates," it said, "have died as resolutely as martyrs. . . . 
If the firmness displayed by John Brown proves anything, 
the composure of a Thug, dying by the cord with which he 
had strangled so many victims, proves just as much." ^^ Not 
unnaturally, the Southern press absolutely failed to compre- 
hend such a point of view as that of Victor Hugo, perhaps the 
greatest man of letters in Europe, in whose far-reaching opin- 
ion: "In killing Brown, the Southern States have committed 
a crime which will take its place among the calamities of his- 
tory. The rupture of the Union will fatally follow the assas- 
sination of Brown. As to John Brown, he was an apostle and 
a hero. The gibbet has only increased his glory and made him 
a martyr." "^^ Por his epitaph Victor Hugo suggested, "Pro 
Christo sicut Christus." 

The Baltimore American' s hope, that Virginia might set- 
tle down after John Brown's execution, came to naught as 
long as Brown's followers were yet to be disposed of. The 
trials of Edwin Coppoc, Shields Green, John Copeland, Jr., 
and John E. Cook followed in that order, and by November 
9 they were all sentenced to die on December 16, their trials 



57o' JOHN BROWN 

being in all essentials repetitions of Brown's, without the dra- 
matic features, George Sennott, of Boston, making a splendid 
legal fight for them. His contention that a negro could not 
be convicted of treason in Virginia was agreed to by Andrew 
Hunter and the court, and Green and Copeland were con- 
victed on the other charges. In Cook's behalf, the eloquent 
Daniel W. Voorhees, of Indiana, later United States Senator 
from that State, made a plea which is said to have reduced 
the court-room to tears — but in vain. "3 In Edwin Coppoc's 
behalf, Governor Wise appeared before the Senate and House 
Committees for Courts of Justice in Richmond, and stated 
his readiness to have Coppoc's sentence commuted to im- 
prisonment for life.^^ This action justly won for the impul- 
sive and high-spirited Governor not a little praise from both 
North and South, and the unfortunate Quaker youth might 
possibly have escaped the scaffold, had there not most in- 
opportunely appeared in the New York Tribune a letter from 
Coppoc to Mrs. John Brown, telling of the death of Watson 
and Oliver Brown, in which he spoke of the Harper's Ferrians 
as "the enemy." At once the Senate Committee took sides 
against Coppoc, and the Governor's intercession became of 
no avail. This might, however, have been the case had the 
letter not appeared, for while it was alleged in some quarters 
that Coppoc had shot no one, it was clearly brought out be- 
fore the Senate Committee that his rifle was responsible for 
Mayor Beckham's death. Coppoc denied having written the 
letter, but it is believed that he signed it after it had been 
written for him by Cook." 

Naturally, the friends of John Brown in the North watched 
the fate of his associates with all devotion, hoping against hope 
for the prisoners' lives, and eager to do anything to aid them. 
The failure of their efforts to rescue John Brown from death 
on the scaffold only increased the determination of his three 
militant friends, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John W. 
Le Barnes and Richard J. Hinton, to cheat the Virginia hang- 
man of some of his victims. But before they could do else 
than begin to plot, four more raiders, John E. Cook, Edwin 
Coppoc, Shields Green and John Copeland, Jr., were executed 
on a single day, December i6. As if to intensify the bitterness 
and disappointment of their Northern allies. Cook and Cop- 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 571 

poc all but escaped, the night before their deaths. Despite 
the watchfulness of Andrew Hunter and the military com- 
manders in Charlestown, one of the men enrolled for service 
in the prison guards soon after the raid was Charles Len- 
hart, the Kansas Free State fighter, whose sole motive for 
this service was a desire to succor the raiders. ^^ It was easy 
for him to get into touch with them, and from him Cook and 
Coppoc learned that on the night of December 14, 1859, he 
would be on duty at the angle of the prison wall most favor- 
able for an escape. They had borrowed a knife from a prison 
guard and "forgotten" to return it; taken a screw out of the 
bedstead, and obtained a knife-blade from Shields Green. 
With these slight implements they had worked a whole week 
and made an aperture in the wall which they were able to 
conceal during the day. With the knife-blade they made teeth 
in the knife, and with this roughly improvised saw cut ofif 
their shackles. Their cell being on the first floor, there was 
a drop of not over five feet to the prison yard. Once there, 
only a fifteen-foot brick wall was between them and free- 
dom. 

On the appointed night, Lenhart was on guard and every- 
thing in readiness. But anxiously as he walked his post those 
long wintry hours, not a sound came to his longing ears be- 
fore the arrival of his relief sent him back to his quarters. A 
fatal consideration for his brother-in-law, the then Governor 
Willard, of Indiana, and his sister Mrs. Willard, who were 
in town to bid him farewell, but were to leave the next day, 
induced Cook to postpone the attempt lest the escape reflect 
upon them.^^ He was generous enough to urge Coppoc to go 
alone, but Coppoc was not of that stuff. Not even the thought 
of his grief-stricken Quaker mother in the quiet village of 
Springdale, to which his brother Barclay had now safely re- 
turned, would induce him to abandon his comrade. On July 
25 of the same year, Barclay Coppoc had said to his mother, 
after getting a letter from John Brown: "We are going to 
start for Ohio to-day." "Ohio!" said his mother, "I believe 
you are going with old Brown. When you get the halters 
around your necks, will you think of me?" *^ The halter was 
fairly around Edwin's neck now, but nothing could induce him 
to deprive Cook of his chance for life by going out alone. 



572 JOHN BROWN 

On the next night, Coppoc removed his chains and crawled 
out first, Cook following. To their joy they found no one in 
the prison yard. Fortunately, the timbers of the scaffold upon 
which Brown had perished, and upon which they were to die, 
were still in the yard, and gave them an easy means of arriv- 
ing at the top of the wall. Alas for their high hopes! A loyal 
soldier of Virginia stood where Lenhart was to have been, 
and the instant Cook appeared upon the wall, the guard shot 
at him.'*^ Both men tried to jump down, but the sentry threat- 
ened to bayonet them if the^^ did, and so, sadly enough, they 
walked back into the jail and delivered themselves up to the 
astonished Captain Avis and his guards. Their stay in their 
cell thereafter was short — a brief twelve hours. At half- 
past twelve of the next day they left it forever, calm, cool 
and collected, to show, as did the negroes Green and Cope- 
land, that Brown's men could die like himself , "with the most 
unflinching firmness," as the Associated Press told the story. 

With these deaths there remained alive at Charlestown only 
Aaron Dwight Stevens and Albert Hazlett, of Brown's little 
band. The latter went by the name of William H. Harrison, 
the nom de guerre of Richard J. Hinton, which Hazlett had 
assumed when arrested at Newville, Pennsylvania. Under 
it he had illegally been extradited to Virginia, there being no 
proof produced that he had ever been in that State, or was 
in any way connected with the Harper's Ferry raid. In jail, 
as already told, his comrades refused to recognize him or call 
him else than Harrison. "Hazlett," says Mrs. Annie Brown 
Adams, "was a really good, kind-hearted man, with little or 
no education. He had always lived among the roughest kind 
of people, and was the least accustomed to polite living of 
any of them, but he was brave and manly in every respect." ^° 
As for Stevens, with his superb physique, fine face and beau- 
tiful voice, and reputation for matchless physical courage, 
the young men of Charlestown thronged to -see him, to hear 
him sing, or to talk of his belief in spiritualism. Women easily 
fell under the sway of his charms, and a young woman from 
Ohio, Jennie Dunbar, went to Richmond in vain, just before 
his execution in March, to beg for his life of Governor Letcher," 
who had succeeded Governor Wise on January i, i860. No 
one who met Stevens failed to remember him, uneducated 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 573 

though he was, and since boyhood an adventurer. His per- 
sonality was a special incentive to those who plotted for his 
release. 

Before the hanging of Cook and Coppoc, Richard J. Hin- 
ton telegraphed to Leavenworth in an endeavor to get hold 
once more of Captain James Montgomery, of Kansas. He 
was restless on December 13 that no answer had come. "Count 
me in for one, Stephens and Haslitt must be saved," he wrote 
to Mr. Higginson on that date, and urged that something be 
done without regard to Montgomery. ^2 g^^ Higginson, know- 
ing Montgomery's reputation as a Free State leader, insisted 
on his coming East to take the leadership in their rescue plan. 
The two did not meet personally until the rescuers had as- 
sembled at Harrisburg. Then Higginson was delighted with 
the Kansan, and wrote to his wife on February 17, i860, that 
Montgomery "is one of the most charming men I ever saw 
. , . and a man to follow anywhere. He was at first reluctant 
to come, but now his soul is in it. Says the obstacles sound 
much greater than they are." ^^ 

The reason for Montgomery's reluctance in coming was, 
as he himself wrote to Higginson on February i, from Mound 
City, Kansas, "the strong possibility that my services will 
be needed nearer home. One of our citizens has been shot 
down and another carried off by a mob from Missouri." Be- 
tween his duty to his family, his duty to his creditors, and his 
duty to the cause, he had spent a sleepless night, and then 
decided to send some one else East in his place. Before this 
letter was penned, Mr. Higginson had started R. J. Hinton 
on January 11, i860, for Kansas, to plead with Montgomery 
personally.^* This Hinton did at Moneka, early in February, 
with such success that Montgomery agreed to leave for the 
East at once, and, instead of mailing his letter of declination 
to Mr. Higginson, handed it to him at Harrisburg. ^^ It was 
addressed to the "Rev. Theo. Brown," and signed by "Henry 
Martin;" but when they met, Higginson was going by the 
name of Charles P. Carter, while Captain Montgomery was 
always referred to in the letters that passed between the 
conspirators as the "master machinist." ^'^ 

Before they actually met in Harrisburg, on February 16, 
much preliminary work was done. Besides contributing lib- 



574 JOHN BROWN 

erally of his own means, HIgginson obtained permission from 
John Brown's widow to use part of the funds placed in his 
hands for the benefit of the Brown family, in his endeavor 
to save Hazlett and Stevens." The young publishers of Red- 
path's hastily written and printed life of Brown, William W. 
Thayer and Charles Eldridge, were enlisted in the cause and 
contributed eight hundred dollars, partly an outright gift, 
partly as a loan, Thayer taking four hundred and thirty-one 
dollars in a bag to Harrisburg and spending, en route, a sleep- 
less night at the Astor House in New York, lest he be robbed 
by an unknown room-mate. Wendell Phillips promised one 
hundred dollars, and E. A. Brackett, the sculptor, two hun- 
dred dollars. Colonel D. R. Anthony, of Leavenworth, con- 
tributed three hundred dollars to Hinton and Montgomery. 
All in all, $1721 were disbursed in the undertaking, and no 
one regretted the expenditure then or at any time.^^ 

Mr. Higginson at once saw the desirability of getting in 
touch with those of Brown's men who had escaped from Har- 
per's Ferry, because of the invaluable knowledge attained by 
them in their recent and perilous escape through the moun- 
tains. He soon succeeded in finding Charles Plummer Tidd, 
then in hiding in Ohio, and learned from him that he was 
anxious to aid the expedition. But Tidd wrote on January 
20 that it would be impossible for him "to act openly in the 
Southern part of this State [Ohio] or in Virginia. I am too 
well known, and at this season of the year I think it a great 
undertaking to camp out." He would be willing to go in the 
spring, but as it became evident that Stevens and Hazlett 
would not be alive in the spring unless rescued, — they were 
both sentenced to death on February 14, i860, — Tidd came 
to Boston in February to counsel with Higginson and Thayer 
and Eldridge. He then again stated his belief that the plan 
of rescue conceived by Higginson, of an overland dash to 
Charlestown through the mountains, was impracticable owing 
to the cold. To camp without fires was impossible; to camp 
with them was to court discovery and capture. ^^ 

For the moment, however, Higginson refused to be dis- 
couraged by the unquestionable truth of this statement, and 
continued his planning with unabated enthusiasm. John W. 
Le Barnes had, meanwhile, returned to New York to reenlist 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 575 

for the new undertaking the group of German revolutionists 
of 1848 who had expressed a wilHngness to join in the effort 
to save Brown from the gallows. It was through the editor of 
the Staats-Zeitung, Oswald Ottendorfer, and Friedrich Kapp, 
one of the foremost of the German refugees, that Le Barnes 
had got into touch with this group and obtained the adher- 
ence of their leader, Colonel Richard Metternich, who sub- 
sequently died in the cause of freedom in the Union army. 
Metternich asserted that he had a dozen or more men ready 
to go, and their terms as to themselves, and their families in 
case of accident, were moderate. But doubts having arisen 
as to the genuineness of their enthusiasm in the cause, Hinton 
was hurried to New York on his return from Kansas, to see 
each of them personally, — "to cinch the Teutons," '^o as Hig- 
ginson put it. Their willingness to start was never actually 
tested. Le Barnes and Hinton saw to it that they were armed 
"with the tools necessary, large and small," that is, rifles 
and revolvers. Rockets and ammunition were also purchased 
in New York, and Mr. Higginson had attended to the ob- 
taining of "tools" for the others of the band, most of which 
were borrowed in Boston. One box of rifles was sent to New 
York in care of Oliver Johnson, editor of the Anti-Slavery 
Standard, and one box of revolvers to Le Barnes, who was 
to bring them in his trunk if summoned to Harrisburg; but 
he was urged to be careful of them, as they were to be "re- 
turned if not wanted." " 

There was no difficulty in getting men together in Kansas 
under Montgomery's leadership, and no question as to their 
loyalty and enthusiasm, with or without pay. Naturally, the 
men who had safely delivered Dr. John Doy from the St. 
Joseph, Missouri, jail were the first thought of. Silas Soul^, 
Joseph Gardner, J. A. Pike and S. J. Willis were selected 
from their number. ^2 Willis, being in Troy, New York, first 
heard of the undertaking through a letter from Hinton. He 
at once wrote to Higginson, in the spirit characteristic of all 
the Kansans, "I am now on call," and assured him that the 
entering of Missouri's strongest prison and taking therefrom 
his friend and neighbor Dr. Doy "are among the most pleasing 
incidents of a somewhat eventful life." From Linn County 
came John Brown's close friend, Augustus Wattles, together 



576 JOHN BROWN 

with Henry Carpenter and Henry C. Seaman. Henry Sea- 
man's brother Benjamin was summoned from his home in 
Iowa, and Benjamin Rice from Bourbon County, Kansas. 
Augustus Wattles went on ahead. "^ 

Captain Montgomery, signing himself " Henry Martin," tel- 
egraphed to Mr. Higginson from Leavenworth, on February 
10, i860, ''I have got eight machines. Leave St. Joseph thir- 
teenth," "machines " being the code word for " men." ^* Curi- 
ously enough, at that moment Mr. Higginson seems to have 
felt that the proper time for the venture had passed. Accord- 
ing to his own memorandum on the telegram, he answered, 
"Too late — send back machines and come here yourself. 
T. B, [Theodore Brown]." But the answer cannot have 
reached Montgomery, for five days later, a telegram from 
J. H. Reed [Hinton] in Pittsburg announced the arrival there 
of "eight machines awaiting transfer," ^^ After two days 
more, the "machines" were safely transferred to Harrisburg in 
the guise of cattlemen looking for bargains. Those from Linn 
County had had a thrilling adventure in crossing the Mis- 
souri River to St. Joseph at night, in an overloaded skiff, but 
experienced no difficulty in passing through that Southern 
city. The three Doy rescuers, Gardner, Pike and Sould, nat- 
urally gave St. Joseph a wide berth, and the two parties do 
not seem to have met until Pittsburg was reached. ^^ The 
eight "machines" reported there could only have been Mont- 
gomery, Rice, Pike, Gardner, Soule, Carpenter and the two 
Seamans, for Wattles had gone ahead, and Willis was still in 
Troy. 

At Harrisburg, Montgomery speedily found Higginson, who 
had taken up his abode with Dr. William W. Rutherford, an 
Abolitionist and a "tower of strength," and probably the 
only man in Harrisburg who was entrusted with the secret." 
The problem which confronted Montgomery and Higginson, 
as they sat down to it in the Doctor's parlor, Higginson put on 
a bit of paper he has carefully preserved. It reads as follows : ^^ 

This is what involved — 

I. Traverse a mountainous country miles at 10 miles a night, 
carrying arms ammunition & blankets & provisions for a week — 
with certain necessity of turning round and retreating the instant 
of discovery, & of such discovery causing death to our friends: and 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 577 

this in a country daily traversed by hunters. Also the certainty of 
retreat or detection in case of a tracking snow wh. may come any 
time. Being out 5 nights at mildest, possibly 10. Includ'g crossing 
Potomac, a rapid stream where there may be no ford or boats. 

2. Charge on a build'g defended by 2 sentinels outside & 25 
men inside a wall 14 ft. high. Several men inside prison besides, & 
a determined jailer. Certainty of rousing town & impossibility of 
having more than 15 men. 

3. Retreat with prisoners & wounded probably after daylight — 
& No. I. repeated. 

T. W. HiGGINSON. 

Montgomery, as Higginson at once reported to his wife and 
to Le Barnes on the same day, February 17, was not dismayed 
by this apparently hopeless and impossible undertaking, but 
insisted that he must first scout over the country by himself. 
For that purpose he needed a whole week, for he must take 
his time and do it thoroughly. "He [Montgomery]," wrote 
the Worcester clergyman, "has excellent suggestions which I 
cannot give — if undertaken at all it can be done at one dash, 
not taking long. But he says & I agree that an unsuccessful 
attempt to introduce the machinery would re-act very un- 
favorably and nothing must be done without a fair prospect 
of success." ^^ 

Bad luck pursued the conspirators from the beginning. 
Tidd was to arrive from Massachusetts that (Friday) night, 
but was compelled to postpone his coming until the following 
Monday or Tuesday. Before their arrival, the heavens proved 
in league with their enemies, for a heavy fall of snow made 
their hearts sick as they gazed upon It on reaching Harris- 
burg. The next day it again snowed heavily, " further depress- 
ing the hopes of our machinist," as Higginson reported.''" 
He himself left on Monday for Chicago, to do some lectur- 
ing there and at Yellow Springs, ^^ returning just In time to 
receive Montgomery's report of a daring venture he had 
made. 

True to his Kansas reputation, he had gone with but one 
comrade, Soule, straight to the portals of Charlestown, risking 
not only the elements, but discovery at the hands of the Vir- 
ginia patrols, with which the roads teemed. He travelled 
openly, and relied, with success, upon that Southern accent 
which was his by right of his Kentucky birth and ancestry. 



578 JOHN BROWN 

Sould played the jovial Irishman to perfection, and, leaving 
Montgomery, entered Charlestown apparently in such a 
state of intoxication, that to his unutterable delight, he was 
speedily locked up in the very jail with the men he had come 
to rescue. He as skilfully obtained an interview with Stevens 
and Hazlett, and informed them of the undertaking on hand. 
Deeply moved, both declared a rescue impossible, for if most 
of the troops had left, and civil rule had been established after 
the executions of December i6, there was still a constant guard 
of eighty men. Troops were, moreover, on call in all the sur- 
rounding towns and could arrive in two or three hours. The 
loss of life would certainly be heavy. Their kind jailer, Cap- 
tain Avis, they knew would fight to the last. They did not 
wish liberty at the cost of his life and those of some of the 
rescuers. Hazlett sent personal messages of farewell to Hinton 
before the interview concluded. Soule was then haled before 
a justice of the peace, listened gravely enough to a lecture 
on the evils of intemperance, and doubtless on the especial 
danger of getting drunk in a town under semi-military con- 
trol. Discharged, he promptly made his way back to Harris- 
burg.^2 

There, too, came Montgomery and also Gardner, who, 
being of Pennsylvania-Dutch birth, had been allowed to try 
the "underground" Quaker routes, with but ill success; for, 
according to Hinton, he was threatened with exposure by 
some to whom he had entrusted his secret, and compelled to 
return." It was perhaps owing to Gardner's indiscretions 
that Governor Letcher again got word that there was a con- 
spiracy afoot, but warnings had already been given him. For, 
on January 26, he wrote to Andrew Hunter: 

"If from the information you receive, you shall be satisfied that a 
rescue will be attempted, inform me at once, either by telegraph or 
otherwise. I have made my arrangements to have all the necessary 
troops upon the grounds at the earliest practicable moment — and 
in a very few hours, after I shall be notified that they are required." ^* 

In the second-rate Drover's Tavern in Harrisburg, in which 
the comrades of Montgomery, Soule and Gardner had awaited 
their return, a council of war was held. Soule made his report 
of Stevens's and Hazlett's wishes. Mr. Higginson declares 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 579 

that he never knew what effect, if any, this attitude of the 
prisoners had upon Montgomery's mind.^^ That he had al- 
ready made it up was speedily clear. He had found the entire 
countryside between Charlestown and Harrisburg on the 
alert, and easily discovered that the pretence of a hunting- 
party would not hold good at that time of year. Finally, the 
continuing heavy snows made rapid movements impossible, 
and great suffering certain. The elements were the deciding 
factors, and Montgomery reluctantly submitted to their 
decree. Higginson, who presided at the conference, asserts 
that he consented reluctantly to the abandonment of the 
enterprise upon which he had built high hopes. Thayer's 
recollection, thirty-three years after, was that the clergyman's 
eloquent insistence that fifteen or twenty lives ought not to 
be sacrificed in a hopeless attempt to save one or two, carried 
the day.^*^ Certain it is that the other Kansans gave up the 
expedition with the greatest reluctance. They had come East 
to die, if need be, in order to rescue their comrades of Free 
State days. But their readiness to sacrifice themselves was in 
vain. Montgomery remained firm, and the opposition of their 
chosen leader could not be disregarded. To the great disap- 
pointment of Hinton and Le Barnes, who were still in New 
York with Metternich and his Teutons, awaiting the word, 
Stevens and Hazlett were now left to their fate. The twenty- 
one men who were ready to take their lives in their hands and 
go — one less in number than the men who went to Kennedy 
Farm — dispersed to their homes or took up their normal 
occupations. Most of the Kansans returned direct to their 
Territory, 

Lest it be thought that these men were not of the fighting 
blood that is willing to risk all against great odds, it must be 
recorded that the majority took up arms as soon as the LInion 
was openly attacked. Higginson became colonel of the First 
South Carolina, the first regiment of blacks raised for the 
Union army, while Montgomery's military record as colonel 
of three regiments has already been given. Le Barnes was a 
lieutenant in a German company of the Second Massachusetts, 
while Tidd died as Sergeant Charles Plummer of the Twenty- 
first Massachusetts, and Colonel Metternich is known to have 
fallen for the Union in Texas. Hinton became a captain in 



58o JOHN BROWN 

the Second Kansas Colored Volunteers, and H. C. Seaman, 
Gardner, Pike, Rice and Willis served in various capacities 
from sergeant to captain, the first three being of the latter 
rank in Kansas regiments at the expiration of their service." 
The willingness of the party to risk death was well proved. 
Higginson in after years went over the ground between Har- 
risburg and Charlestown only to convince himself that the 
decision reached by Montgomery was the proper one. An 
attempt would have failed utterly. While ready at that time 
to risk all, it is plain that Higginson realized how desperate 
the undertaking was to be; for once, when it appeared that 
the Germans might not materialize, he wrote to his wife that 
this meant "another chance on your side," — that is, another 
faint prospect that he might return to her alive. When this 
fiery apostle of liberty finally reached his home safe and 
sound, his first entry in his note-book after getting to W^orces- 
ter on March i, i860, was the famous message in Dickens's 
'A Tale of Two Cities ' — " Recalled to Life." ^^ Fifteen 
days later, Stevens and Hazlett perished on the scaffold; 
Stevens certain of a return to earth in spirit form, while Haz- 
lett, rejoicing in the news that his body was to be "taken 
from this land of chains," added, "my death will do more 
than if I had lived." ^^ 

To add to the political excitement of the winter of 1859- 
60, and to keep John Brown before the public, two events 
contributed besides the trials and executions in Charlestown. 
These were the meetings of the Mason Investigating Commit- 
tee of the United States Senate, to which references have 
already been made, and the contest in the House of Repre- 
sentatives over the Speakership. The Mason Committee's 
sessions began on December 16, 1859, and ended on June 14, 
i860. The next day, Senator Mason presented a majority re- 
port signed by himself. Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, 
and Senator G. N. Fitch, of Indiana. The minority of the 
committee, Senators Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, and James 
R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, also presented a short report. In it 
the minority expressed no sympathy with John Brown or his 
purpose; indeed, their chief effort seemed to be to offset any 
political effect the majority report might have in connecting 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 581 

Northern Abolitionists or prominent Republicans with John 
Brown and his men. Hence they reached the extraordinary 
conclusion that there was no evidence that any other citizens 
than those at Harper's Ferry were accessory to the outbreak, 
or had "any suspicion of its existence or design" before the 
explosion. They also recorded their belief that no evidence 
was presented of any conspiracy or design, by any one, to 
rescue John Brown and his associates from prison. The raid 
the minority believed to be "but an offshoot from the exten- 
sive outrages and lawlessness in Kansas." It was astonishing 
to them that, "in a country like ours . . . there should still 
be found large bodies of men laboring under the infatuation 
that any good object can be effected by lawlessness and vio- 
lence. ... It can, in its nature, beget nothing but resistance, 
retaliation, insecurity and disaster." Said Messrs. Collamer 
and Doolittle: "Ages might not produce another John Brown, 
or so fortuitously supply him with such materials." The fatal 
termination of the raid had, they thought, furnished "assur- 
ance against the most distant possibility of its repetition," 
and they inveighed against the example of lawlessness fur- 
nished by the slave-power in its aggressions on neighboring 
nations, the armed invasions of Kansas, and the " merciless 
breaches of our laws against the African slave trade, ' unwhipt 
of justice.' " 

As for the majority report, viewed after fifty years, it is 
disappointingly ineffective from the slavery point of view, 
when it is considered that such able men as Jefferson Davis 
and J. M. Mason constructed it. Their narrative of what 
happened at Harper's Ferry is succinct and accurate, and 
tells the facts without any attempt at coloring. As for their 
opinions, the majority dwelt upon Brown's desire to "incite 
insurrection" among the slaves, and declared that "it was 
owing alone to the loyalty and well-affected disposition of 
the slaves that he did not succeed in creating a servile war, 
with its necessary attendants of rapine and murder of all sexes, 
ages and conditions." The Committee, being "not disposed 
to draw harsh, or perhaps uncharitable conclusions," com- 
mented severely on the way Kansas arms were turned over 
to Brown after they had been denied to him by the Kansas 
National Committee. "The expedition, so atrocious in its 



582 JOHN BROWN 

character, would have been arrested, had even ordinary care 
been taken on the part of the Massachusetts Committee to 
ascertain whether Brown was truthful in his professions." 
The report contains next a severe attack upon Congress- 
man Giddings for his doctrine of a "higher law," the law of 
nature, which, superior to any statute law, gave to each soul 
the right to live, to enjoy happiness, and to be free. Quoting 
also from the testimony of Dr. Howe and Mr. Stearns, the 
majority of the Committee felt that "with such elements at 
work, unchecked by law and not rebuked but encouraged by 
public opinion, with money freely contributed and placed in 
irresponsible hands, it may easily be seen how this expedi- 
tion to excite servile war in one of the States of the Union 
was got up, and it may equally be seen how like expeditions 
may certainly be anticipated in future wherever desperadoes 
offer themselves to carry them into execution." The majority 
report admitted that John Brown's reticence was such that 
"it does not appear that he intrusted even his immediate 
followers with his plans, fully, even after they were ripe for 
execution." 

Finally, Messrs. Davis, Mason and Fitch could suggest no 
legislation which would be adequate to prevent like occur- 
rences in the future. The invasion to them "was simply the 
act of lawless ruffians under the sanction of no public or 
political authority," with the aid of money and firearms con- 
tributed by citizens of other States "under circumstances 
that must continue to jeopard the safety and peace of the 
Southern States, and against which Congress has no power 
to legislate." If the several States would not, for the sake of 
policy or a desire for peace, guard by legislation against the 
raid's recurrence, the Committee could "find no guarantee 
elsewhere for the security of peace between the States of the 
Union." Its only definite recommendation was that mili- 
tary guards be kept at armories and arsenals. It reported 
that four persons, John Brown, Jr., James Redpath, Frank 
B. Sanborn and Thaddeus Hyatt, having failed to appear 
before the Committee, warrants had been issued for their 
arrest. Of these, Mr. Hyatt alone was taken into custody. 
He languished for three months in the jail of the District of 
Columbia, refusing to testify for the sake of the principle 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 583 

involved, and was finally released by the Senate on June 16, 
1860,*" the day that Senator Mason laid the findings of his 
Committee before the Senate. 

The two reports attracted little attention when finally 
printed, for by that time the excitement engendered by the 
raid and the contest between North and South over the 
Speakership had burned itself out. The actual findings were 
so mild and had been so thoroughly discounted, and the 
progress of political events had gone so far beyond the raid, 
that this final story of it, valuable as were and are the testi- 
monies that accompanied the reports, became merely one of 
the many events now rapidly leading up to the secession of 
the Southern States. The Liberator noticed the reports only 
to say that the Mason Committee mountain had labored and 
brought forth a mouse. ^^ The Herald, like many other news- 
papers, did not deem them worthy of editorial comment. 
This did not mean, however, that John Brown was already 
forgotten. His name appeared constantly in the press all 
through the year i860; the raising of a fund for his family 
and the surviving raiders, the publication of the first bio- 
graphy of him by James Redpath, the reunion of his family 
and friends at the grave at North Elba on July 4, i860, — all 
these attracted attention to the victim of the Charlestown 
gallows, and to his men. 

In the Speakership fight in Congress — dramatic in the 
extreme — John Brown's name was often mentioned and his 
acts denounced by the representatives of the South and many 
from the North. This contest lasted from the Monday fol- 
lowing John Brown's execution, December 5, to February i.^^ 
The election would undoubtedly have gone to John Sherman, 
of Ohio, had it not appeared that he had endorsed Hinton 
Rowan Helper's book, 'The Impending Crisis of the South: 
How to Meet it,' which had infuriated the South about as 
much as 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' — if anything more so, for 
Helper was a North Carolina poor white, who wrote with all 
the intensity of feeling of his class, for whom the aristocratic 
system of slavery held out hopes of nothing but a steady 
degeneration, materially and socially. Helper was no friend 
to the slave, but he demanded the abolition of slavery, the 
expulsion of the negroes, and the destruction of the oligar- 



584 JOHN BROWN 

chical despotism which slavery had made possible. The argu- 
ments voiced against his book were chiefly abuse of the writer, 
rather than an attempt to controvert his facts and statistics, 
which were, indeed, unanswerable. But Mr. Sherman's en- 
dorsement of Helper's book, and John Brown's raid and death, 
had brought Congressmen's passions to the boiling point, and 
there was a tremendous outburst of feeling. Personal alterca- 
tions and bitter disputes were of frequent occurrence, and two 
members were arrested and placed under heavy bonds to keep 
the peace. Men freed their minds on the whole slavery ques- 
tion in a debate that did much to help on the work of popular 
education John Brown had so stimulated. Speaking of the 
vote in the Massachusetts Legislature on the motion to ad- 
journ out of sympathy for John Brown's death. Senator Iver- 
son declared that Southerners "stand on the brink of a vol- 
cano," and that the Republican disclaimers of responsibility 
for Brown's raid were "not worth the paper on which they 
are printed." ^' " Do you suppose that we intend to bow our 
necks to the yoke; that we intend to submit to the domina- 
tion of our enemies?" asked Senator C. C. Clay, of Alabama; 
" that we intend to sit here as hostages for the good behavior 
of our conquered people — a people under your Republican 
administration not sovereigns but subjects?"^" Besides the 
Southern leaders who were eager for a break-up of the Union, 
a number of Southern representatives for the first time talked 
secession, and they found themselves heartily applauded 
and supported by many influential newspapers, which ac- 
claimed also the message sent to the Legislature by Governor 
Perry, of Florida. ^^ In this he said : 

"What else then have we to expect while the Union continues, 
but the repetition, no one can say when, where, how often, or with 
what bloody issues, of attempts like that lately thwarted in Virginia? 
Florida as the youngest and least populous of the Southern Sover- 
eignties, can only follow in action the lead of her sisters. • • • I 
believe that her voice should be heard in ' tones not loud but deep,' 
in favor of an eternal separation from those whose wickedness and 
fanaticism forbid us longer to live with them In peace and safety." 

For months it was impossible to supply the demand for 
Helper's book, even though it was forbidden in the South, — 
the latter fact a notice that its cherished economic condi- 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 585 

tions must not be subjected to criticism or debate. Men 
were even imprisoned for circulating it, as if its falsehoods 
— if such they were — would not render it innocuous; and 
the North retorted that the South dared not let the truth 
spread abroad. Not even Sherman's explanation that he had 
endorsed the book by proxy, without reading it, could save 
him. He was finally defeated, and Pennington, of New Jer- 
sey, chosen in his stead. The Union meetings in the North, 
engineered generally by well-to-do merchants and others who 
had a pecuniary interest in peace and pacific trade with the 
South, added to the general feeling that the country was in 
the throes of a great crisis. Late in April came the Charles- 
ton convention of the Democrats, with the resultant split- 
ting up of the party along Southern and Northern lines, and 
adjournment without nominations to Baltimore on June 18. 
Then Douglas was chosen by the Northern faction to run 
against Lincoln, who had meanwhile been nominated by the 
Republicans. 

There was but one issue in the campaign, and that was 
slavery and the future attitude of the Federal Government 
toward it. Within a trifle over six months after John Brown's 
death, the nation was practically divided into two camps, 
though hundreds of thousands did not realize how far the 
contest had gone, and hoped and believed like Lincoln that, 
even if he were elected, some way might be found of avoiding 
the "irrepressible conflict" and averting a national disaster. 
But all through the campaign, threats of disruption were rife; 
South Carolina let the world know that she was ready to leave 
the Union if the Republican party should be victorious. On 
November 6, i860, Abraham Lincoln was chosen President 
of the United States. On July 18, 1861, eight months later, 
Colonel Fletcher Webster's regiment, the Twelfth Massa- 
chusetts, marched through the streets of Boston singing the 
John Brown song, which four of its m.embers had just im- 
provised.^'' Its men, too, were bound to Virginia with arms in 
their hands, but their movements, in contrast to John Brown's, 
were open and above board; they marched under the laws 
of war, duly commissioned by their government and known 
of all men. Theirs, too, were the cheers and plaudits of the 
crowds as they sang their great song through the streets 



586 JOHN BROWN 

of Boston and New York, until in Baltimore they chanted It 
with grim defiance of the silent hostility on every side. 

Now, fifty years later, it is possible to take an unbiased 
view of John Brown and his achievements, even if opinions 
as to his true character and moral worth diverge almost as 
violently as in 1859. There are those in the twentieth century, 
appointed to teach history in high places, who are so blind as 
to see in John Brown only the murderer of the Pottawatomie, 
a "horse-thief and midnight assassin." Still others behold in 
him not merely a sainted martyr of the most elevated char- 
acter, but the liberator of Kansas, and the man who, unaided, 
struck their chains from the limbs of more than three million 
human beings. These writers would leave nothing to be 
credited to Abraham Lincoln, nothing to the devoted band 
of uncompromising Abolitionists who, for thirty years prior 
to Harper's Ferry, had gone up and down the North denounc- 
ing slavery in its every form, stirring the public conscience 
and preparing the popular mind for what was to come. The 
truth lies between these two extremes. Were men who have 
powerfully moulded their time to be judged solely by their 
errors, however grievous, all history would wear a different 
aspect. In Virginia, John Brown atoned for Pottawatomie 
by the nobility of his philosophy and his sublime devotion to 
principle, even to the gallows. As inexorable a fate as ever 
dominated a Greek tragedy guided this life. He walked al- 
ways as one blindfolded. Something compelled him to attack 
slavery by force of arms, and to that impulse he yielded, 
reckoning not at all as to the outcome, and making not the 
slightest effort to plan beyond the first blow. Without fore- 
sight, strategy or generalship, he entered the Harper's Ferry 
trap confident that all was for the best, to be marvellously 
preserved from the sabre which, had it gone home, must have 
rendered barren his entire life, his sacrifice and his devotion. 

When Brown assailed slavery in Virginia, the outlook for 
Abolition was never so hopeful. The "irrepressible conflict" 
was never so irrepressible, and he who believes there would 
have been no forcible abolition of slavery had there been no 
John Brown, is singularly short-sighted. The South was on 
the brink of a volcano the day before the blow at Harper's 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 587 

Ferry, as it was the day after, because slavery was intolerable 
morally and economically. It was bound to be overthrown 
because, in the long run, truth and righteousness prevail. 
Helper's book was written before John Brown struck, and the 
facts it contained, as to the social and economic injury to the 
South from its system of unpaid labor, lost and gained nothing 
by the bloodshed at the Harper's Ferry arsenal or the deaths 
on the Charlestown scaffold. The secession movement was too 
far under way for any peaceable solution; the minds of too 
many Southern leaders besides Governor Wise were thor- 
oughly committed to it even before the raid. "The truth 
is," wrote Alexander Stephens on November 30, i860, "our 
leaders and public men ... do not desire to continue it [the 
Union] on any terms. They do not wish any redress of wrongs, 
they are disunionists per se and avail themselves of present 
circumstances to press their object." ^^ This feeling and that 
sense of personal hostility which, as Senator Iverson remarked 
in the following month, kept the Northern Senators on their 
side of the Senate "sullen and gloomy" while "we sit on our 
side with portentous scowls. . . . We are enemies as much as 
if we were hostile States," ^^ — all this was not the outgrowth 
of a year's excitement, nor did it begin in the John Brown 
raid. There was seething bitterness when the Kansas-Ne- 
braska act was passed. There were two hostile camps when 
Sumner was struck down and one side of the Senate mourned, 
while the other exulted. 

In 1859, the public recognized in John Brown a fanatic, but 
one of those fanatics who, by their readiness to sacrifice their 
lives, are forever advancing the world. Plenty exclaimed, like 
George Hoadley: "Poor old John Brown, God sanctify his 
death to our good, and give us a little of his courage, piety and 
self-sacrificing spirit, with more brains!" ^^ They saw that he 
had no personal ambition; they felt that he was brave, kind, 
honest, truth-telling and God-revering. The nature of the 
conflict before the country was thereby revealed to them, and 
the revelation advanced the conflict immeasurably, just as it 
stirred the slave-power to new aggressions. It was like the 
lightning from the sky that lights up the darkness of the com- 
ing storm, so that men may for a fraction of a second take 
measure of its progress. So even across the water it illumi- 



588 JOHN BROWN 

nated the heavens to Victor Hugo and let him look so far 
into the future that he wrote: 

"The gaze of Europe is fixed at this moment on America. . . . 
The hangman of Brown — let us speak plainly — the hangman of 
Brown will be neither District-Attorney Hunter, nor Judge Parker, 
nor Governor Wise, nor the little State of Virginia, but — you shud- 
der to think it and to give it utterance — the whole great American 
Republic. ... It will open a latent fissure that will finally split the 
Union asunder. The punishment of John Brown may consolidate 
slavery in Virginia, but it will certainly shatter the American De- 
mocracy. You preserve your shame but you kill your glory." 

It was to Victor Hugo, too, the "assassination of Deliverance 
by Liberty." 80 

But the true Deliverance came with John Brown behind the 
bars at Charlestown, when there was suddenly revealed to 
him how inferior a weapon was the sword he had leaned upon 
from the time he had abandoned the pursuits of peace for 
his warfare on slavery. Not often in history is there recorded 
such a rise to spiritual greatness of one whose hands were so 
stained with blood, whose judgment was ever so faulty, whose 
public career was so brief. John Brown is and must remain 
a great and lasting figure in American history. Not, however, 
because he strove to undo one wrong by committing another; 
not because he took human lives in a vain effort to end the 
sacrifice of other lives and souls entailed by slavery. Judged 
by the ordinary legal and moral standards, John Brown's life 
was forfeit after Harper's Ferry. The methods by which he 
essayed to achieve reforms are never to be justified until two 
wrongs make a right. It was the weapon of the spirit by which 
he finally conquered. In its power lies not only the secret of 
his influence, and his immortality, but the finest ethical teach- 
ings of a life which, for all its faults. Inculcates many an en- 
during lesson, and will forever make its appeal to the imagi- 
nation. His brief, yet everlasting, prison life is the clearest 
condemnation of his violent methods both in Kansas and in 
Virginia. For the Abolitionists, it will be remembered, he had 
had nothing but contempt. Theirs were "but words, words;" 
yet it was by words, and words, embodying his moral princi- 
ples, the theological teachings he valued so highly, the doc- 
trines of the Saviour, who knew no distinction of race, creed or 



YET SHALL HE LIVE 589 

color, and by the beauty of his own peace of spirit in the face of 
death, that he stirred his Northern countrymen to their depths 
and won the respect even of the citizens of the South. It was 
in jail that he discovered, too, how those very words of the Abo- 
lition preachers he had despised had prepared and watered 
the soil so that his own seed now fell upon fertile fields, took 
root, and sprouted like the magic plants of children's fables. 

Thus it came about that when the men of the North, within 
an amazingly brief space of time, found themselves, to their 
astonishment, likewise compelled to go South with arms in 
their hands, it was not the story of bloody Pottawatomie, nor 
of the battle at Osawatomie, that thrilled them, nor even of 
the dauntless lion at bay in the engine house. It was the man 
on the scaffold sacrificing, not taking life, who inspired. The 
song that regiment after regiment sang at Charlestown dealt 
not with John Brown's feeble sword, but with his soul. It was 
the heroic qualities of his spirit that awed them, his wonderful 
readiness to die with joy and in peace, as so many of them 
were about to die for the nation and the freedom of another 
race. They, too, were giving up all that was dear to them, 
their wives, their children, the prospect of happy homes and 
long, useful lives, to march and suffer; to see their brothers, 
yea their sons, fall by their side; even to receive upon their 
own bodies the sabres of their enemies. Theirs, too, was the 
ennobling experience of self-sacrifice. How great, then, must 
have been their inspiration, to feel that he who was the first in 
America to die for a treason which became as if overnight the 
highest form of devotion to an inspired cause, was marching 
on in the realms above! 

And so, wherever there is battling against injustice and 
oppression, the Charlestown gallows that became a cross will 
help men to live and die. The story of John Brown will ever 
confront the spirit of despotism, when men are struggling to 
throw off the shackles of social or political or physical slavery. 
His own country, while admitting his mistakes without undue 
palliation or excuse, will forever acknowledge the divine that 
was in him by the side of what was human and faulty, and 
blind and wrong. It will cherish the memory of the prisoner 
of Charlestown in 1859 as at once a sacred, a solemn and an 
inspiring American heritage. 



NOTES 

CHAPTER I 
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 

1. The original is in the possession of the Stearns family at Medford, Mass, 

2. Recollections of an Old Settler, by Christian Cackler, Hudson, Ohio, 1870, 
pp. 20-21. 

3. Ibid., p. 29. 

4. John Brown to George B. Gill and others, Chatham, Canada West, May 18, 
1858, printed in Davenport, Iowa, Gazette, Feb. 27, 1878. 

5. The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Boston, 1909, p. 3. 

6. For these and subsequent facts relating to the Brown ancestry, the author 
is indebted to George E. Bowman, Esq., Secretary of and Editor for the Massachu- 
setts Society of Mayflower Descendants, who settled the question of the Windsor 
Peter Brown's family in The Mayflower Descendant for January, 1903, vol. 5, 
no. I, pp. 29-37; to the Librarian of the New England Historical and Genealo- 
gical Society, Mr. William P. Greenlaw, who is also satisfied, after a search of the 
records, that Peter Brown of the Mayflower left no male issue, and to Mrs. Mary 
Lovering Holman, who, at the author's request, worked out a complete genealogy 
of the Brown and Mills family as far back as the Windsor connections. 

7. The extracts here given are from the original MS. in the possession of Mrs. 
S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich. 

8. Owen Brown to John Brown, Hudson, Ohio, March 27, 1856. — Original in 
the collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas. 

9. From the original MS. in the possession of Miss Mary E. Thompson, Pasa- 
dena, Cal. 

ID. Owen Brown was also credited with a rich vein of humor, intensified by 
a habit of stuttering and a keen perception of the ridiculous. The following bit 
of his philosophy of marriage, not heretofore recorded and now in the possession 
of Miss Mary E. Thompson, he sent to his granddaughter, Ruth Brown Thomp- 
son, shortly after her marriage, when he was himself eighty years of age: "There 
is much said about womens wrights in these days and it is tru they have there 
Wrights and what are they but the love and care of a faithful Husband, with a 
share in all his honours joys and comforts of every kind, if he has good Company 
she must be a shearer if he has no company she must be his good company. If 
hir Husband is in trouble and affliction she must be afflicted and sympathise with 
him and make them as lite as possable. Sometimes Men bring troubles on them- 
selves, in such cases Men or Women want there comforters and had not ought 
to be deprived while at some time we see it quite the reverce. I was once in com- 
pany with a woman and asked about another Cupple, how they got along. She 
said they jest rubed along. I told hir I was indebted to hir for the way she had 
expresed it, this is the case of very many Husbands and wives, they jest rub 
along and the wheals of time never go chearfull and clean but are always rubing." 

11. Reminiscences of Hudson, Supplement to the Hudson Independent, re- 
printed as a pamphlet, Hudson, Ohio, 1899. 

12. From the MS. records of the Trustees of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. 



592 NOTES 

13. For these anecdotes see, for example, Historical Collections of Ohio, by 
Henry Howe, Columbus, 1891, vol. 3, pp. 331-333, article written by M. C. 
Read, of Hudson, Ohio, a member of the faculty of Western Reserve College; see 
also statement of Charles P. Read to Dr. F. C. Waite, Hudson, Dec. 25, 1908, 
in possession of the author; also Christian Cackler's pamphlet. 

14. Life and Letters of John Brown, by Frank B. Sanborn, Boston, 1885, pp. 

38-39- 

15. Statement of Dr. Francis Bacon, New Haven, Conn., Feb. 13, 1908, to 
K. Mayo; 'John Brown,' by Leonard Woolsey Bacon, New Englander and Yale 
Review, April, 1886, pp. 289-302. 

16. From MS. of Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson, in possession of her daughter. 
The Rev. H. L. Vaill, of Litchfield, Conn., fixed the year of John Brown's at- 
tendance at Morris Academy as 18 17. See letter of L. W. Bacon to the Editor 
of the New York Independent, reprinted in the Liberator of Dec. 2, 1859. In his 
letter to his men from Chatham, May 18, 1858, John Brown states that he was 
travelling "between the sea-side and Ohio" in the spring of 1817. See Davenport 
Gazette, Feb. 27, 1878. 

17. John Brown and His Men, by R. J. Hinton, New York, 1894, p. 13; letter 
of William H. Hallock in Hartford Press, Nov. 11, 1859. 

18. Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's MS. 

19. As narrated by Mrs. Danley Hobart, Levi Blakeslee's daughter, Cleveland, 
Dec. 31, 1908, to Miss Katherine Mayo, and in Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's 
MS. 

20. California Christian Advocate, July 18, 1894. 

21. Statement of Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, Petrolia, Cal., Oct. 2, 1908; 
of Benjamin Kent Waite, Columbus, Ohio, Dec. 26, 1908; and of Mrs. Nelson 
Waite and Mrs. Henry Pettingill, Hudson, Dec. 1908; all to K. Mayo. The last 
three witnesses state that both of Dianthe Lusk's sisters died mentally infirm. 

22. Sanborn, pp. 33-34. 

23. Statement of Jason Brown, Akron, Dec. 28, 1908, to K. Mayo. The other 
facts in regard to Brown's attitude toward his children are largely drawn from 
the manuscript of Mrs. Thompson; from the statements of four of the surviving 
children, Miss Sarah Brown, Jason Brown, Salmon Brown and Annie Brown 
Adams; and from the statements of the following neighbors familiar with the 
Brown family life: Alfred Hawkes, Mrs. Sherman Thompson, Mrs. Danley Ho- 
bart, Charles Lusk, Mrs. Charles P. Brown, R. M. Sanford, Miss Annie Perkins, 
Mrs. Charles Perkins, Col. George T. Perkins, R. W. Thompson, Mrs. Nelson 
Waite, Mrs. Henry Pettingill and Mrs. Porter Hall, all in December, 1908; and 
of James Foreman, see Note 25 below. 

24. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908, confirmed by Mrs. 
Thompson. 

25. MS. letter of James Foreman, Youngsville, Warren Co., Pa., Dec. 28, 
1859, to James Redpath, now in Hinton Papers, in the Kansas Historical So- 
ciety. 

26. Ibid. 

27. An article entitled 'An Abolitionist,' by Edward Erf, in the Pittsburg 
Post of May 28, 1899, gives briefly the main facts of Brown's life in Richmond; 
other details are from the Foreman letter, from the MS. narrative of George B. 
Delamater, a copy of which is in Miss Thompson's possession, and from the 
records of the Post Office Department at Washington. 

28. According to the Bible of Mrs. Julia Pitkin, Dianthe Lusk's sister, the 
latter was born January 12, 1801, and was therefore in her thirty-second year 



NOTES 593 

at the time of her death. Jason Brown vividly recalls being summoned, with his 
brothers, by their father to stand by the bedside of their dying mother, and 
recalls also the admonition she gave them. 

29. The recollections of Miss Sarah Brown, Saratoga, Cal., have been largely 
drawn upon for this characterization of Mary Day Brown. 

30. See interview with John Brown, Jr., in the Cleveland Press, May 3, 1895; 
Henry L. Kellogg's report of Owen Brown's version of the incident, in the Chris- 
tian Cynosure of March 31, 1887; interview of Mrs. John Brown in the Kansas 
City Journal of April 8, 1881; the story is also confirmed by Henry Thompson's 
statement, Aug. 27, 1908, by Miss Brown's statement of Sept. 16, 1908, and by 
that of George B. Gill, Attica, Kansas, Nov. 12, 1908, all to K. Mayo. 

31. From a facsimile of the original in the Kent, Ohio, Courier, Sept. 14, 1906. 

32. For the facts as to Brown's business and real estate transactions, see the 
Kent Courier of Sept. 14, 1906, the statements in it being furnished by the late 
Marvin Kent; also Fifly Years and Over of Akrott and Summit County, by ex- 
Sheriff Samuel A. Lane, Akron, 1892, p. 385 et seq.; also statement of Mr. 
William S. Kent, son of Marvin Kent, Kent, Ohio, Dec. 23 and 24, 1908, to 
K. Mayo. 

33. On pages 87-89 of Sanborn's Life there is an able review by John Brown, 
Jr., of his father's business mistakes, from which this excerpt is taken. 

34. He and his wife sold, on Sept. 17, 1838, a lot of land in Franklin township 
for $3500. The deed is in Miss Sarah Brown's possession. 

35. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger, Campbell, Cal. 

36. See his first note-book, now preserved in Boston Public Library. 

37. Original in possession of Miss Sarah Brown, Saratoga, Cal. 

38. Sanborn, pp. 55-56. 

39. From the original in the possession of George D. Smith, 48 Wall Street, 
New York City. 

40. Sanborn, p. 56. 

41. The narrative of John Brown's negotiations with the Trustees of Oberlin 
is drawn from the official records, and from the correspondence in the case in the 
Treasurer's Office of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio; the letter of April 27, 1840, 
will be found in Sanborn, p. 134. 

42. From the original court inventory of Sept. 28, 1842, in possession of Miss 
Sarah Brown. 

43. John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Richfield, Jan. 11, 1844, Sanborn, pp. 
59-60 (edited by Mr. Sanborn). 

44. Original in possession of Miss Sarah Brown. 

45. ' The Last Days of Old John Brown,' by Lou V. Chapin, Overland Monthly, 
April, 1899, pp. 322-332. 

46. Statement of Mrs. William A. Hall to W. P. Garrison, April 18, 1895; 
statement of Mrs. Charles Perkins, Akron, Ohio, Dec. 12, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

47. Summaries of all these various cases were kindly obtained for the author 
by Mr. W. D. Jenkins, Clerk of the Courts, Ravenna, Ohio. 

48. It is entitled Heman Oviatt versus John Brown, Daniel C. Gaylord, Amos 
Chamberlain, Tertius Wadsworth, Joseph Wells and others. Supreme Court of 
Ohio, January term, 1846, and is reported at length in 14 Ohio Reports, 286. 

49. There is a mass of evidence in regard to Brown's refusal to give up the farm 
to Chamberlain. The author has examined, besides John Brown, Jr.'s story of 
the trouble (Sanborn, pp. 86-87), Gen. N. Eggleston's charges printed in the 
Rockford, 111., Journal-Herald of Nov. 3, 1883, and John Brown, Jr.'s answer 
to them in the Topeka Capital of Dec. 22, 1883; also statements of Jason Brown, 



594 NOTES 

made in Akron, Dec. 1908, and of R. W. Thompson and R. M. Sanford, of Hud- 
son, near neighbors of Brown's, made at Hudson, Dec. 20, 1908, to K. Mayo; 
Mrs. Sherman Thompson, of Hudson, a daughter of Mr. Chamberlain, kindly 
furnished the view of the case taken by the Chamberlain family; the pamphlet of 
Christian Cackler, already referred to, gives his unfavorable opinion on pp. 36-37. 
50. The original of this letter is in the possession of the author. 



CHAPTER II 
"his greatest or principal object" 

1. Sanborn, pp. 40-41 (edited). 

2. See, for a careful analysis of this whole question in the light of Brown's 
first memorandum-book. The Preludes of Harper's Ferry, a pamphlet by Wendell 
Phillips Garrison, comprising two papers contributed to the Andover Review in 
December, 1890, and January, 1891. Upon this the author has freely drawn. 

3. Sanborn, p. 61 (edited). 

4. See letter of F. B. Sanborn, Dec. 22, 1890, in the Nation of Dec. 25, 1890, 
which includes the one from John Brown, Jr., here quoted. 

5. John Brown, Jr.'s affidavit in the Gerrit Smith case was given at Sandusky, 
Ohio, July 19, 1867. A copy of the original is in the author's possession; cf. 
Sanborn, p. 39. 

6. From Miss Thompson's copy of the Delamater MS. 

7. Quoted in James Freeman Clarke's Anti-Slavery Days, New York, 1884, 

PP- 155-156. 

8. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, by Himself, Hartford, Conn., 1882, 

pp. 309-314- 

9. F. B. Sanborn (MS.) to W. P. Garrison, Concord, Dec. 5, 1890. 
ID. Sanborn, p. 134. 

11. Statement of Miss Sarah Brown, Saratoga, Cal., Sept. 16, 1908, to 
K. Mayo. 

12. For the garbled version, see the account of Daniel B. Hadley in McClure's 
Magazine, Jan. 1898, pp. 278-282. Mrs. Annie Brown Adams states (Oct. 2, 
1908) that the man Ruggles, who committed the assault, did so when Brown lay 
helpless from fever in his ox-cart. John Brown's children know nothing of his 
alleged non-resistant views. 

13. Hinton's John Brown, p. 585. "The Branded Hand" was the sobriquet 
of Jonathan Walker, sea captain, of Harwich, Mass., who was captured on his 
vessel by a United States ship, when smuggling slaves to a free port, imprisoned, 
pilloried and branded on the hand for the offence. The Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, of 
Alton, 111., was the editor of an anti-slavery religious paper, the Observer. Three 
times his presses were destroyed by a mob determined to stop his utterances. In 
defending a fourth press, Nov. 7, 1837, he was murdered. The Rev. Charles 
T. Torrey suffered imprisonment for his attempts to run off negroes from the 
border States, and died in prison. 

14. Hinton's John Brown, pp. 587-588. 

15. From the original in the possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

16. Statements of Henry Myers and Daniel Woodruff Myers to K. Mayo, 
Hudson, Ohio, Dec. 11, 1908. 

17. Sanborn, p. 191. 

18. Statement of Mrs. Adams, PetroHa, Cal., Oct. 2, 1908, to K. Mayo; also 



NOTES 595 

letter of same to R. J. Hinton, Petrolia, June 7. 1894, Hinton Papers, Kansas 
Historical Society. 

19. Cf. Sanborn, p. 133. Thomas Thomas personally asserted this to Mr. 
Sanborn. 

20. " Did I ever tell you that Father changed his plan several times and finally 
adopted the old original one?" — Mrs. Adams to R. J. Hinton, June 7, 1894, as 
above. 

21. See, for instance, Cheerful Yesterdays, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 
Boston, 1898, pp. 222-223; also Sanborn, p. 525. 

22. Agnes Brown to J. H. Holmes, Portland, Oregon, Oct. 15, 1902, setting 
forth her father's (Salmon Brown's) views. — Copy in possession of author. 

23. Life of Frederick Douglass, pp. 309-310. The author has consulted George 
A. Graves, a neighbor of Brown's, and other residents of Springfield for facts 
as to this period of Brown's life. 

24. Life of Frederick Douglass, p. 311. 

25. Related by Salmon Brown, Portland, Oregon, Oct. 13, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

26. Sanborn, p. 63. 

27. The original letter-book was kindly loaned to the author by Mrs. Ellen 
Brown Fablinger, of Campbell, Cal. 

28. Perkins & Brown to Messrs. Crafts & Still, Springfield, July 11, 1846, 
Letter-Book No. i, p. 31. 

29. Letter-Book No. i, p. 70. 

30. Perkins & Brown to Hamilton Gay, ibid., p. 116. 

31. The same to Friend Benjamin W. Ladd, Springfield, Dec. 14, 1846, Let- 
ter-Book No. I, p. 158. 

32. Cleveland, Ohio, Weekly Herald, March 17, 1847. 

33. When John Brown was in jail in Charlestown, Aaron Erickson, a wool- 
merchant and a highly esteemed pioneer in Rochester, N. Y., wrote to Gov. Wise 
of his belief in Brown's insanity, because of the latter's "delusion that wool had 
never been properly graded." Mr. Erickson also alleged that Brown was not 
skilful in testing wools, and that his whole "defiance of the plainest and simplest 
laws of commerce," which led to his business collapse, could be charged only to 
an unbalanced mind. The original Erickson letter is in the possession of Mr. 
Edwin Tatham, of New York. 

34. See Sanborn, pp. 67-68. 

35. Sanborn, p. 72 (edited). 

36. Originals in possession of Miss Sarah Brown. 

37. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Put-in-Bay, Ohio. 

38. Ibid. 

39. This figure has been frequently said to be $70,000. The estimate here 
given seems about correct to Col. George T. Perkins, the son of Simon Perkins 
(letter of July 22, 1908, to the author). 

40. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. 

41. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., as is that of the letter next 
quoted. 

42. Statement of Miss Anna Perkins, daughter of Simon Perkins, Akron, Ohio, 
Dec. 12, 1908, to K. Mayo; Miss Perkins also says that her father "never ques- 
tioned John Brown's exact probity." 

43. John Brown to his "Wife and Children every one, Ingersol, Canada West, 
l6th April, 1858." — Original in possession of Alfred A. Sprague, of Chicago. 

44. John Brown to Simon Perkins, Troy, 26th Jan. 1852. — Original in the 
Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. 



596 NOTES 

45. Sanborn, pp. 79-80. 

46. John Brown to his son John, Feb. 24, 1854, Sanborn, pp. 156-157. 

47. From the original, dated April 3, 1854, in the possession of Mrs. John 
Brown, Jr. 

48. Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's MS., in possession of Miss Thompson. 

49. Printed in full in the Liberator of Feb. 3, i860. 

50. Springfield Republican, article on 'John Brown's Fugitives,' June 12, 1909. 

51. Original in possession of Alfred A. Sprague, of Chicago. 

52. Original in possession of Charles P. Brown, Akron, Ohio. 

53. To John Brown, Jr., Akron, Aug. 26, 1853. — Sanborn, pp. 45-51. 

54. Gerrit Smith, by O. B. Frothingham, ist, or suppressed edition, New 
York, 1878, pp. 102-107 et seq. 

55. Ibid., pp. 235-236. 

56. New York Tribune, Nov. 5, 1852. 

57. Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's MS. John Brown to Simeon Perkins, Spring- 
field, Mass., May 24, 1859. — Original in possession of Mr. Hull Piatt, Walling- 
ford. Pa. 

58. Transactions Essex County, N. Y., Agricultural Society, 1850, p. 229; The 
Life, Trial and Conviction of Capt. John Brown, New York, R. M. DeWitt, 
Publisher, 1859, pp. 9-10. 

59. From copy in the Library of Harvard University. 

60. Ibid. 

61. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author, April, 1909. 

62. Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's MS. 

63. 'How We Met John Brown,' by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., in the Atlantic 
Monthly for July, 1871, pp. 1-9. 

64. John Brown to his son, John Brown, Jr., Vernon, Oneida County, N. Y., 
March 24, 1851. — Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. Further evi- 
dence of John Brown's unsettled life at this period appears in his letter to his 
father, dated " Steamer United States, Lake Champlain, 23rd May, 1850." — ■ 
Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich. 

65. John Brown to Ruth and Henry Thompson, Akron, Feb. 13, 1855. — 
Original in Haverford College Library, Haverford, Pa. 

66. Original in the Byron Reed Collection, Omaha Public Library, as is also 
the original of the letter of Aug. 24, 1854, previously mentioned in text. 

67. MS. statement of Gerrit Smith, Jan. 3, 1874, property of Mr. Sanborn. 

68. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author. 



CHAPTER III 

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 

1. Sanborn, p. 191. 

2. A brief history of John Brown, etc. By one who knows (John Brown). MS. 
Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

3. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec 13 and 14, 1908, to K. Mayo, at Sher- 
bondy, Ohio; John Brown, Jr., in Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883. 

4. Cf., for instance, Gen. D. R. Atchison, of Missouri, in the Platte Argus, 
cited in Robinson's Kansas Conflict, p. 94: "If abolitionism under its present 
auspices, is established in Kansas, there will be constant strife and bloodshed 
between Kansas and Missouri. Negro stealing will be a principle and a voca- 



NOTES 597 

tion. It will be the policy of philanthropic knaves, until they force the slave- 
holder to abandon Missouri; nor will it be long until it is done. ... If Kansas 
is abolitionized.all men who love peace and quiet will leave us, and all emigration 
to Missouri from the slave states will cease. " Senator Alfred Iverson, of Georgia, 
said in a speech at Columbus, Ga., reported in the Savannah Georgian of Nov. 
2, 1855: "If Slavery gives way in Kansas, Missouri will be surrounded on three 
sides by non-slaveholding States, and the institution must give way there; it will 
also be in peril in the Indian Territory lying south of Kansas; it will then only 
remain for the Abolitionists to extend their influence to Western Texas, and the 
great object of their ambition will be attained. The South will then be reduced 
to a hopeless minority in the Union; her institutions will be confined to the narrow 
limits they at present occupy, and their overthrow will only be a question of 
time." See also speech of Congressman Felix K. ZoUicoff'er, Appendix to the Con- 
gressional Globe, 33d Congress, ist session, vol. xxxv, p. 584; address by citizens 
of western Missouri to the people of the United States, after Lexington, Mo., 
convention, N. Y. Tribune, Sept. 25, 1855; letter of Atchison to Committee of 
Battle of King's Mountain Celebration, N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 2, 1855. 

5. James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, New York, 1904, vol. i, pp. 
475 and 489; Louis A. Reese, The Admission of Kansas into the Union (MS.). 

6. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908. 

7. Salmon Brown to John Brown, Brownsville, K. T., May 21, 1855. — Origi- 
nal in possession of Miss Sarah Brown. 

8. John Brown, Jr., in Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883. 

9. Letter of John Brown, Jr., Brownsville, K. T., dated May 20, 24, and 26, 
to John Brown. — Original in Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society- 

10. A brief history of John Brown, etc. 

11. John Brown to John W. Cook, of Walcottville, Conn., from Akron, Ohio, 
13th Feb., 1855. — Original in Torrington, Conn., Public Library. 

12. Frederick Douglass: The Colored Orator, by Frederic May Holland, New 
York, 1 89 1, p. 247. 

13. John Brown to his wife and children, Syracuse, June 28, 1855. — Copy 
in possession of Miss Sarah Brown. The "old British army officer" mentioned 
in this letter was Capt. Charles Stuart (sometimes erroneously called "Stewart"). 
See Life of William Lloyd Garrison, by his Children, Boston, 1894, vol. i, p. 
262, and vol. 3, p. 418; Sanborn, p. 194. 

14. John Brown, Akron, Ohio, Aug. 15, 1855, to his wife and children. — Ori- 
ginal in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. Jason Brown, in his state- 
ment of Dec. 28, 1908, confirms Sheriff Lane's recollection of Brown's method of 
raising arms in Akron. 

15. John Brown to his wife and children, Aug. 23, 1855. — ^Original in pos- 
session of Alfred A. Sprague, of Chicago. 

16. John Brown, Jr., to John Brown, June 22, 1855. — Original in Kansas 
Historical Society. 

17. Original in Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

18. John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Aug. 9, 1858, from copy of the letter in 
possession of Miss Mary E. Thompson, Pasadena, Cal. 

19. Statement of Henry Thompson, Pasadena, Cal., August, 1908, to K. Mayo, 

20. John Brown to his wife and children, Osawatomie, K. T., Oct. 13 and 
Nov. 2, 1855, — originals in Kansas Historical Society; also letter of Nov. 23, 
1855, in possession of Miss Sarah" Brown. The distress of the family is again 
described by Jason Brown, Osawatomie, Jan. 23, 1856, to his'grandfather. — Ori- 
ginal in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark, Berea, Ky. 



598 NOTES 

21. Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, K. T., Sept. i6, 
1855, now in possession of the writer of the letter. 

22. Letter of Nov. 2, 1855, as above. 

23. Letter of Nov. 23, 1855, as above. 

24. Mrs. John Brown Jr.'s letter of Sept. 16, 1855. 

25. Statement of Jason Brown at Sherbondy, Ohio, Dec. 28, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

26. Ibid. 

27. Statement of Salmon Brown, Portland, Oregon, Oct. 11-13, 1908, to K. 
Mayo. 

28. Kansas Free State, Lawrence, July 2, 1855; Herald of Freedom, Lawrence, 
Kansas, Aug. 8, 1857, chapter 10 of 'A Complete History of Kansas ;'G. W. 
Martin, The First Two Years of Kansas, Topeka, 1907, p. 14. 

29. Henry Thompson to Ruth Brown Thompson, May 18, 1856. — Original 
in possession of Miss Mary E. Thompson. 

30. Herald of Freedom, cited in A. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas, 
Chicago, 1883, p. 108; also see Andreas, p. no, for list of members of the first 
Free State Executive Committee. 

31. Statutes of the Territory of Kansas, Shawnee M. L. School, 1855. Mrs. 
Charles Robinson says that the Free State settlers interpreted the Black Laws 
to mean that it was a prison offence to have in their homes the Declaration of 
Independence. — Sara T. L. Robinson, Kansas: its Interior and Exterior Life, 
Boston, 1856, p. 116. 

32. D. W. Wilder's Annals of Kansas, Topeka, 1875, p. 57. 

33. Letter of John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Sept. 15 and 21, 1855. — 
Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. At the convention in Lawrence, 
Aug. 15, 1855, held to ratify the acts of the meetings of the past two days, accord- 
ing to the Herald of Freedom of Aug. 18, 1855, "Frederick Brown, of Mill Creek, 
one of the five Browns alluded to in the State convention of Radical Abolitionists 
at Syracuse, New York, was in favor of military organization for the purpose of 
resisting invasion and aggression." — See Andreas, p. 108. 

34. Letter of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Sept. 16, 1855, now in her possession. 

35. Thomas H. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 5, p. 157, in the Kansas Historical 
Society. 

36. John Brown to John W. Cook, Akron, Ohio, Feb. 13, 1855; to John Tees- 
dale, of Des Moines, March, 1859, printed March 16, 1895, in the New York 
Evening Sun; statement of Henry Thompson, Aug. 1908. 

37. Letter of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, Jan. 
6, 1856. — Original in possession of Miss Brown. 

38. Letter of Henry Thompson to Ruth Brown Thompson, Oct. 19, 1855, — 
original in possession of Miss Thompson; statement of Henry Thompson, Aug. 
1908. 

39. Reese MS.; Census of Kansas, Jan. and Feb. 1855, completed March 8, 

1855. 

40. Report of the Majority of the Special Committee Appointed to Investi- 
gate the Troubles in Kansas. Report No. 200, House of Representatives, 34th 
Congress, 1st session, Washington, 1856; hereinafter called the Howard Report. 
See also Charles Sumner's speech of May 19, 1856, 'The Crime Against Kansas,' 
Appendix to the Congressional Globe, vol. xli, 34th Congress, ist session, 1855-56, 

p. 529. 

41. Majority Report of Howard Committee, p. 8. 

42. Reported in Platte Argus, cited in T. N. Holloway's History of Kansas, 
Lafayette, Ind., 1868, p. 135; also in N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 2, 1854. 



NOTES 599 

43. See letter of the Tribune's Washington correspondent, J. D. Pike, in issue 
of Feb. 13, 1855: "The bowie-knife Missourians will elect the Legislature of Kan- 
sas as they elected its delegate;" also correspondence of Cleveland Herald and 
Philadelphia Ledger, quoted in New York Tribune, Dec. 9, 1854. 

44. Howard Report, p. 4. 

45. Ibid., pp. 5-6. 

46. Reese MS.; Andreas, p. 94; Howard Report, p. 79 et seq. 

47. Howard Report, p. 8; Reese MS.; Andreas, p. 94. 

48. Kansas Herald, April 6, 1855, cited in Andreas, p. 97. 

49. St. Louis Pilot, cited in N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 9, 1854; see also views of 
Washington Sentinel, cited in Tribune, Jan. 18, 1855. 

50. Washington letters of J. A. Pike in the N. Y. Tribune of Feb. 5, 6 and 
10, 1855; Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 81. The Liberator stated on April 13, 1855, after the 
second election: "Beyond doubt the fate of Kansas is sealed." 

51. New York Tribune, Dec. 9 and 25, 1854. 

52. Andreas, p. 85; Richard Cordley, History of Lawrence, Lawrence, Kansas, 
1895, p. 6. 

53. Cited in Andreas, p. 83. 

54. Cited in Andreas, p. 89; see also address of Citizens' Committee of Lexing- 
ton, Mo., convention. New York Tribune, Sept. 25, 1855. 

55. See, for instance. Squatter Sovereign, Feb. 20, 1856; Kickapoo Pioneer, Jan. 
18, 1856; R. H. Williams, With the Border Ruffians, New York, 1907, p. 85; see 
also Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 15, p. 83, Kansas Historical Society; and files of 
all pro-slavery papers from Sept. 1854, on; see also (Memoir of Samuel Walker) 
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 6, pp. 251-255. 

56. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 14, p. 35. 

57. W. A. Phillips, Conquest of Kansas, Boston, 1856, pp. 28-30. 

58. T. H. Gladstone, The Englishman in Kansas, New York, 1857, p. 41. 

59. Sara T. L. Robinson's Kansas, pp. 15 and 19-20; see also graphic picture 
of Atchison's Missourians at Doniphan City, in the N. Y. Tribune of April 21, 
1855; also N. Y. Tribune of April 30, 1855; and Kansas Historical Society Col- 
lections, vol. 5, p. 79; also N. Y. Tribune of April 12 and 17, 1855. 

60. For these newspaper quotations, see Kansas Historical Society Collections, 
vol. 7, pp. 29 and 30. 

61. Statement of Gen. G. W. Deitzler, in Charles Robinson's Kansas Conflict, 
Lawrence, 1898, pp. 123-124; Howard Report, pp. 84-85, 1157. It is interesting 
to note that Charles Sumner, in his great speech of May 19, 1856, thus denied the 
activity of the Emigrant Aid Society: "For it has supplied no arms of any kind to 
anybody. It is not true that the Company has encouraged any fanatical oppres- 
sion of the people of Missouri, for it has consulted order, peace, forbearance;" 
see also Robinson, pp. 123-124; also Howard Report, pp. 86 and II57- 

62. See Reeder's testimony, Howard Report; also Executive Minutes of Gov. 
Reeder, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. i, pp. 59-60. 

63. Andreas, p. 94. 

64. Howard Report, p. 9 et seq. 

65. Sara T. L. Robinson's Kansas, p. 27; Howard Report, p. loio; see also 
Boonville, Mo., handbill on the "Coming Election," dated March 13, cited in 
N. Y. Tribune of April 6, 1855. 

66. Andreas, p. 90; Holloway, pp. 122-123. The Self-Defensive Association, 
having committed numerous outrages, was compelled to disband, after being de- 
nounced by a mass-meeting of one hundred and seventy-four citizens of Weston, 
held Sept. i, 1854. See Holloway, p. 127. 



600 NOTES 

67. Howard Report, pp. 81-82; see also Andreas, p. 90; Holloway, pp. 124- 

125. 

68. Howard Report, p. 30. 

69. Ibid., pp. 35 and 936. 

70. Cordley's Lawreyice, p. 38; Andreas, p. 102. "We understand and believe, 
said the St. Louis News on May 12, 1855, "that David R. Atchison is at the bot- 
tom of all the troubles that have afflicted Kansas, and is the chief instigator of the 
meetings, mobs and cabals, threats and excitement, which threaten to plunge the 
border into a wild fratricidal strife." 

71. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 4, p. 3; Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 
7, pp. 30-34. 

72. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 3, p. 158; N. Y. Tribune, April 23 and May 9, 
1855; Holloway, p. 156. 

73. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 3, p. 213; see N. Y. Tribune, April 23 and 26, 
1855. The St. Louis Democrat, April 21, 1855, was one of a number of papers to 
approve the destruction of the Parkville Luminary. The Platte, Mo., Argus^ said: 
"The 'freedom of the press' is not for traitors and incendiaries; " see Robinson, 

74. See article in the Western Reporter, April 21, 1856, condemning Blue 
Lodges and the emigration from Missouri into Kansas; also the article 'The Pass- 
ing of Slavery in Western Missouri,' by John G. Haskell, Kansas Historical So- 
ciety Collections, vol. 7, pp. 28-39; also the amusing testimony of Thos. Thorpe, 
of Platte County, Missouri, in Phillips's Conquest of Kansas, pp. 91-97- 

75. July 6, 1855, was the date of Gov. Reeder's veto. For the message in full, 
see Journal of the House of Representatives of the Territory of Kansas, 1855, 
p. 29. A similar veto message will be found in full in the N. Y. Tribune for July 
31, 1855; see also Andreas, p. 103. 

76. Journal of the Council of the Territory of Kansas, 1855, July 30, Appen- 
dix, pp. I and 2. 

77. Reeder's Testimony, Howard Report, pp. 944-945- For memorial for 
removal of Gov. Reeder, see Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 
200-204. For the official letter removing Reeder, see 34th Congress, 1st session, 
Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 23. 

78. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 86. 

79. Cf. Holloway, pp. 170-171; N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 25, 1855. 

80. Journal of the House of Representatives of Kansas Territory, 1855. 

81. Cordley, p. 33; Robinson, p. I2I. 

82. Andreas, p. 107; Reese MS. 

83. Andreas, p. 106; Holloway, p. 178; Cordley, p. 34. 

84. Cordley, p. 35; Andreas, p. 106; Holloway, p. 178. 

85. Robinson, p. 143; Andreas, p. 106; James Henry Lane, by W. E. Con- 
nelley, Topeka, 1899, p. 47. 

86. Holloway, p. 179; Andreas, pp. 106-107. 

87. This summary of the two conventions of Aug. 14 and 15 is drawn from the 
accounts of Andreas, Robinson, Holloway, Reese, the N. Y. Tribune, and con- 
temporary Kansas newspapers. 

88. Minutes of the Big Springs Convention, a pamphlet in the Kansas Historical 
Society; see also Andreas, pp. 108-109. 

89. Cited in Robinson, pp. 172-173; see also Robinson, pp. 140-142, for a criti- 
cism of the Garrisonian attitude toward the Robinsonian policy in Kansas. 

90. Horace Greeley, editorial in N. Y. Tribune of Sept. 21, 1855. 

91. Reese MS.; Andreas, pp. 111-112. 



NOTES 6oi 

92. Reese MS.; Andreas, p. 112. 

93. Cf. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. loi; Reese MS. 

94. Andreas, p. 109; N. Y. Tribune, Sept. 21, 1855; Wilder's Annals, p. 61. 

95. Andreas, p. no. John Brown, Jr., was also a member of the Executive 
Committee appointed by the Lawrence convention of Aug. 14-15, 1855, but this 
was not a delegate convention. — Wilder, p. 55. 

96. Reese MS. 

97. Ibid.; also John Brown, Jr., in Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. 
I, p. 272. 

98. Howard Report, pp. 44-45. 

99. Andreas, p. in; Wilder, p. 67. 

100. Andreas, p. 122; Rhodes, vol. 2, pp. 126, 201. 

101. Howard Report, p. 53; Andreas, pp. 111-I12. 

102. Howard Report, pp. 53-54. 

103. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 26, 1855; Wilder, p. 70; Andreas, p. 114; Phillips, 
pp. 148-149. 

104. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 74: "From the spring and 
summer of 1854 to the establishment of a legitimate territorial government by 
the success of the free-state men and actual settlers in the election of 1857 and 
1858, the territory was practically without law and legal machinery, aside from 
the territorial judges and marshal appointed by the president." — W. H. T. 
Wakefield. See also Howard Report, p. 1026, testimony of D. J. Johnson. Mr. 
A. H. Case, of Topeka, long a leader of the Kansas bar, with a large practice in 
criminal cases, testifies that it was some time after his arrival in July, 1858, 
before any one was prosecuted for murder, "although they were prosecuted for 
stealing cattle." — Statement of Aug. 16, 1908, in Topeka, Kansas, to K. Mayo. 

105. Howard Report, p. 64. 

106. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 2, pp. 59, 155; Martin, First Two Years of Kansas, 
p. 11; Howard Report, pp. 1162-1163. 

107. Andreas, p. 99; Leavenworth Herald, May 4, 1855; Howard Report, pp. 

965-970. 

108. For story of McCrea's trial and escape, see N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 2, 6, 8, 
and 17, 1855; also Sara T. L. Robinson's i^anxa^, pp. 104-105, 112-113, 126-127; 
also Howard Report, pp. 967-968, 970; also Andreas, p. 425. For Chief Justice 
Lecompte's defence of himself, see Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, 

pp. 389-405- 

109. Howard Report, p. 1026, testimony of D. J. Johnson. 
no. Howard Report, testimony of R. R. Rees, pp. 970-972. 

111. Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler, N. Y. Tribune, May 19, 1856, 
Aug. 30, 1855; Phillips, pp. 145-147; Howard Report, pp. 960-963. 

112. Phillips, p. 145; Squatter Sovereign, Aug. 7, 1855, cited in N. Y. Tribune, 
Aug. 23, 1855; Howard Report, pp. 960-962. 

113. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 3, 1855. 

114. To Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, K. T., Oct. 13 and 14, 1855. — Origi- 
nal in possession of Kansas Historical Society. 



6o2 NOTES 



CHAPTER IV 
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 

1. Mrs. Jason Brown to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, November 25, 1855, 

— original in possession of Miss Brown; letter of John Brown, Jr., in the Cleve- 
land Leader, November 29, 1883. 

2. Letter of John Brown to wife and children, Brownsville, November 30, 1855, 

— original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger; also letter of December 
16 from the same to the same, — original in Kansas Historical Society; John 
Brown to his father, Brownsville, November 9, 1855, — original in possession 
of Mrs. S. L. Clark. 

3. Phillips, Conquest of Kansas, pp. 141-144; N. Y. Tribune, November 13, 
20, 1855; HoUoway, pp. 208-209; John H. Gihon, Geary and Kansas, Philadel- 
phia, 1857, pp. 47-48. For another version of this affair, attributing the killing 
of Collins to one Lynch, see N. Y. Tribune, February 16, 1856. 

4. For the killing of Dow and the arrest and rescue of Branson, see letter of 
S. N. Wood to Augustus Wattles, August 29, 1857, quoted in Robinson's Kansas 
Conflict, pp. 184-186; Howard Report, pp. 59-60, 1040 et seq.; Mrs. Robinson, 
p. 105 et seq. For Coleman's narrative, see G. Douglas Brewerton, The War in 
Kansas, New York, 1856, p. 223 et seq.; N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 31, 1855. 

5. N. Y. Tribune, December 8, 1855; Robinson, pp. 188-189; Mrs. Robinson, 
pp. 109-111. 

6. Testimony of L. A. Prather, Howard Report, p. 1065 et seq.; Mrs. Robin- 
son, p. 109; Phillips, pp. 162-163. 

7. Executive Minutes of Gov. Shannon, Kansas Historical Society Publica- 
tions, vol. I, p. 98. 

8. Shannon to Franklin Pierce, November 28, 1855, Kansas Historical Society 
Publications, vol. i, p. loi; Shannon to Richardson and to Strickler, ibid., pp. 
99-100. 

9. Affidavit of Hargis (otherwise Hargus or Hargous) in regard to the burning. 
See Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 244-245; see also Howard 
Report, pp. 60, 1044, 1051, 1059, 1064, 1 107; also, Brewerton, p. 150. 

10. Kansas Historical Society Publicatioiis, vol. i, pp. 99-100, Shannon to 
Major-General W. P. Richardson and General H. J. Strickler, November 27, 

11. Executive Minutes, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. i, p. 102; 
Brewerton, p. 164. 

12. Brewerton, p. 166. 

13. Brewerton, p. 164; Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 105; Charles Robinson placed the 
number of Kansas residents enrolled in the pro-slavery forces at fifty, Howard Re- 
port, p. 1072; Phillips, p. 185, estimated it as never exceeding seventy- five or 
eighty; Sheriff Jones gave it as "not more than 150 or 200." See also Howard 
Report, testimony of James F. Legate, p. 1095; Andreas says: "There were some 
fifty pro-slavery residents — the Kickapoo Rangers, in the command." 

14. Telegram to St. Louis Republican dated Kansas, Thursday, December 6, 
1855, quoted in N. Y. Tribune, December 10. 

15. N. Y. Tribune, December 12, 1855; Andreas, p. 117; see also Kickapoo 
City Pioneer, November 28, 1855: "To Arms! To Arms! The Enemy is in the 
Field. Up, Citizens. Up, Pro-slavery Men. Up, Southerners. Up, Law and Or- 
der Men!" 



NOTES , 603 

16. Howard Report, p. 1096. 

17. Howard Report, testimony of J. M. WinchcU, pp. 1088 and 1090; ibid., 
testimony of James S. Legate, p. 1095; ibid., testimony of Gov. Shannon, p. 1109; 
Cordley, p. 54; Gihon, p. 58; Andreas, p. 118; Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 105. 

18. See Missouri Democrat, cited in N. Y. Tribune of December 31, 1855. 

19. Andreas, p. 119; Phillips, pp. 171-172, 181; Cordley, p. 56. 

20. Howard Report, pp. 60 and 1129-1131. 

21. Cordley, pp. 52, 59-61; Phillips, pp. 174-176; Holloway, p. 219; Andreas, 
p. 118. 

22. John Brown to wife and children, Osawatomie, K. T., December 16, 1855, 
— original in possession of Kansas Historical Society; see also letter of S. L. 
Adair, Osawatomie, Dec. 9, 1855, to Owen Brown in Hudson, — original in pos- 
session of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich. 

23. Howard Report, p. 62. 

24. Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

25. Original certificate of service, in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr.; see 
also Andreas, p. 121. 

26. Letter of R. G. Elliott to K. Mayo, Lawrence, August 6, 1908. 

27. James F. Legate, in the Leavenworth Weekly Press, October 23, 1879; John 
Brown Scrap-Book, vol. i, Kansas Historical Society. 

28. Ibid.; see also statement of George Leis, Lawrence, Nov. 30, 1909, for the 
author. 

29. John Brown to Orson Day, Brown's Station, December 14, 1855, from copy 
in J. H. Holmes Papers in possession of the author. 

30. For the varying accounts of the meeting and the speeches, see Phillips, 
p. 222; letter of R. G. Elliott to Miss Mayo; statement of Jason Brown, Decem- 
ber 13 and 14, 1908; letter of Salmon Brown to J. H. Holmes, Portland, Oregon, 
July 8, 1901; statement of Salmon Brown, Portland, Oregon, October 11, 1908; 
Reminiscences of Old John Brown, by G. W. Brown, M. D., Rockford, 111., 1880, 
p. 8; statement of E. A. Coleman, Sanborn, p. 220; Herald of Freedom, October 
10, 1857. 

31. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908, confirmed by Salmon 
Brown; G. W. Brown, Reminiscences of Old John Brown, p. 8. 

32. Robinson, pp. 207, 217. 

33. R. G. Elliott. In a statement of July 27, 1908, at Lawrence, Kansas, to 
K. Mayo, Mr. Elliott says: "The people would never have submitted to the 
Shannon treaty had they understood its nature. It is also believed that if John 
Brown's policy of attack had been followed, it would have been very bad for 
the Free State cause." 

34. Andreas, p. 119; Phillips, p. 225; Robinson, p. 204. For Shannon's Expla- 
nation, see Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 248. 

35. Phillips, p, 227; Howard Report, pp. 62, 1126; N. Y. Tribune, December 29, 
1855; L. Spring, Magazine of Western History, vol. 9, p. 80; for Jones's statement, 
see Report on Kansas Claims, signed by E. Hoogland, H. J. Adams and S. A. 
Kingman, a committee of the Kansas Legislature, p. 62. This long report was 
published in Report No. 104, House of Representatives, 36th Congress, 2d session, 
Washington, 1861. 

36. Phillips, pp. 226-227. 

37. Ibid., p. 228. 

38. For Shannon's letter and the authority given Robinson and Lane, see 
Brewerton, pp. 197-201; see also Governor Shannon's Explanation, Kansas His- 
torical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 247-249. 



604 NOTES 

39. Howard Report contains eight testimonies; see also Gihon, pp. 65-70; 
Mrs. Robinson, pp. 144-146 and 160-163; Brewerton, pp. 137. 3o6, 329, for state- 
ments of Barber's widow and other relatives; Phillips, p. 211 et seq. 

40. James F. Legate, Leavenworth Weekly Press, October 23, 1879. 

41. John Brown to Orson Day, December 14, 1855. 

42. Letter to wife and children from " Westpoint," Mo., January I, 1856.— 
Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fabllnger. 

43. Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, Jan. 6, 1856, — 
original in possession of Miss Brown; Henry Thompson to Ruth Brown Thomp- 
son, Brown's Station, K. T., January 6, 1856, —original in possession of Miss 
Mary E. Thompson. Frederick Brown was the nominee of the meeting, but at 
the request of the chairman, John Brown, who urged that the elder brother would 
make a better representative, having greater knowledge of such matters, the vote 
was given to John Brown, Jr., — statement of Henry Thompson, September, 
1908. 

44. Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, January 6, 1856. 

45. Ibid.; John Brown to wife and children, Osawatomie, Feb. i, 1856,— 
original in Kansas Historical Society; letter to his father, Brownsville, Nov. 9, 
1855, —original in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark, Berea, Ky.; letter of Jason 
Brown to his grandfather, Owen Brown, Osawatomie, Jan. 23, 1856, — original 
in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark. 

46. Mrs. Robinson, pp. 171-174; Gihon, pp. 71-72; Kansas Historical Society 
Collections, vol. 7, p. 525; Howard Report, many testimonies; and p. 63 et seq.; 
Charles Robinson, p. 222; Andreas, pp. 124, 426; Phillips, pp. 240-246. 

47. Quoted in Andreas, p. 125. 

48. Quoted in Wilder, p. 91. 

49. Quoted in Andreas, p. 125; Webb's Scrap-Book; Kansas Historical Society 
Collections, vol. 8, p. 19; also in N. Y. Tribune of February 2, 1856. 

50. Mrs, Robinson, p. 167; Howard Report, p. 969; Kansas Historical Society 
Collections, vol. 7, p. 525. 

51. Andreas, p. 124; Holloway, pp. 275-276. 

52. Andreas, p. 125; Holloway, p. 278. 

53. Letter of Henry Thompson to Ruth Brown Thompson, January 26, 1856. 
— Original in possession of Miss Thompson. 

54. Now first published. — Original in possession of Miss Kate Giddings, 
Jefferson, Ohio. 

55. John Brown to his father, Owen Brown, Osawatomie, January 19, 1856. — 
Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis. 

56. Jason Brown to his grandfather, Osawatomie, Jan. 23, 1856. — Original 
in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark; also to Orson Day, February 21, 1856. 

57. Original in Kansas Historical Society. See Sanborn, p. 224. 

58. Andreas, p. 125; Executive Minutes of the Territory of Kansas, Kansas 
Historical Society Publications, vol. i, p. 104. 

59. Reese's MS.; St. Louis Democrat, quoted in N. Y. Tribune of March 27, 
1856; Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 6, p. 298. 

60. John Brown to wife and children, Osawatomie, March 6, 1856. — Original 
in possession of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama. 

61. Letter of H. H. Williams to C. A. Foster, Foster MS., in Kansas Historical 
Society; for John Brown, Jr.'s own account of the proceedings of this Legisla- 
ture, and of his part therein, see his letter to his grandparents. Brown's Station, 
Osawatomie, without date, — original in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark. 

62. Miscellaneous Documents, No. 82, House of Representatives, 34th Con- 
gress, 1st session. 



NOTES 605 

63. Kansas Tribune, March 5 and 12, 1856; see also letter of John Brown, Jr., 
to his grandparents, above cited. 

64. Letter of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Ruth Brown Thompson, Brown's Sta- 
tion, April 8, 1856. — Original in possession of Miss Thompson. 

65. Letter of Henry Thompson to his wife. Brown's Station, March 23, 1856. 
— Original in possession of Miss Thompson. 

66. Henry Thompson to his wife, April 16, 1856. — Original in possession of 
Miss Thompson. 

67. Henry Thompson to his wife, May, 1856. — Original in possession of Miss 
Thompson. 

68. This account of the Settlers' Meeting has been drawn from the letter of 
S. L. Adair to J. H. Holmes, Osawatomie, July 9, 1894; statements by Henry 
Thompson, August and September, 1908; the speech of Martin White, which will 
be found in the Leavenworth, Kansas, Journal of March 12, 1857; also 'The 
Settlers' Meeting and Protest of April 16, 1856, in Osawatomie,' by O. C. Brown, 
a participant, Adams, N. Y., October, 1895, a MS. now in the O. C. Brown 
Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

69. The resolutions as given here are taken from the Kansas Free State, pub- 
lished in Lawrence, May 5, 1856. 

70. Statement of Salmon Brown, October 11, 1908. 

71. From a copy of the original, taken by James H. Holmes. 

72. 'The Settlement of Lane and Vicinity,' MS. by James Hanway, in Han- 
way Miscellanies, vol. 4, Kansas Historical Society. "I was in sight but in the 
background when our committee served the resolutions on the Judge. He made 
no reply. There was a little side-work done to intimidate that Jury in a secret 
way on our part that never got out to the public." — Salmon Brown to J. H. 
Holmes, Portland, January 28, 1903, — original in possession of the author. 

73. Statement of Salmon Brown, October, 11, 1908; MS. of John Brown 
entitled ' An Idea of Things in Kansas,' in possession of the Kansas Historical 
Society; statement of Jason Brown, December 13-14. 1908; statement of Henry 
Thompson, August, 1908. 

74. See ' The Buford Expedition to Kansas,' by Walter L. Fleming, American 
Historical Review for October, 1900; see also N. Y. Tribune, May 5 and 10, 1856; 
Mrs. Robinson, pp. 216-217. 

75. N. Y. Tribune, May 13, 1856. 

76. Fleming, American Historical Review, October, 1900. 

77. N. Y. Tribune, May 2, 1856. 

78. See, for instance, Greeley's editorial of March 7, 1856. 

79. N. Y. Tribune, May 5, 1856. An example of the recruiting that went on 
at this time in the South is afforded by a circular now in the possession of the 
author dated June 12, 1856: 

"TO ALL TRUE 
SOUTHERN MEN! !" 

Shall Kansas be surrendered to the Abolitionists ? 

Shall we sit down in idleness and permit our enemies to wall up Southern 
institutions, and thus endanger our existence as a people? We have the ability 
to prevent it - — Do we lack the patriotism ? 

Massachusetts says we must be driven out. Her Legislature has just appro- 
priated $20,000 to effect this purpose, and her people propose to raise imme- 
diately by private efforts $100,000 more. These people are engaged in the busi- 
ness of fanaticism and treason. Will Alabamians be less liberal in maintaining 



6o6 NOTES 

their substantial, vital rights under the Constitution? — Shall we turn our backs 
on the brave Missourians who stretch out their hands to us for help in a common 
cause? If we intend to do anything now is the time. This is a living, pressing issue. 
Is it possible that we are dead to its importance? Southern Freemen must be true 
to themselves. We know there are men among us who discourage this great move- 
ment to save the South, by predictions of failure and inability to succeed. Down 
with such men. Turn from them as our worst enemies and let all true men unite 
in crushing out this spirit of submission to abolition aggression and willingness 
to surrender Southern Rights without a struggle. 

Messrs. Baker & Johnston, 

Who have been aiding in emigrating Southern men to Kansas, have just returned 
for the purpose of raising more men and money. H. D. CLAYTON, ESQ., AND 
DR. JOSEPH JONES, will accompany and assist them in this enterprise. They 
are prepared to give reliable and valuable information, and for these purposes 
will meet and address the people at the following times and places. 

The meetings were to be held throughout July at twenty-four places, among 
them Tuskegee and Mount Meigs, where are now located industrial schools for 
the freed negroes. 

80. N. Y. Tribune, March 3, 1856. 

81. N. Y. Tribune, Jan. 19, 1856. 

82. The best accounts of Sheriff Jones's activity in Lawrence and his wounding 
are to be found in Andreas; Mrs. Robinson; the official report of Lieut. James 
Mcintosh, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 418-419; the N. Y. 
Tribune; and Phillips; see also Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 410. 
For pro-slavery side see H. C. Pate's letter to St. Louis Republican, dated April 14, 
1856, 9 P. M. ; also Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 414-416 ; Shannon 
to Pierce. The Life of Gen. J. H. Lane, by John Speer, Garden City, Kansas, 1897, 
pp. 77-80, is also of value. 

83. Sworn testimony of three members of Jones's posse, April 28, 1856; Kansas 
Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 410. 

84. See letters of Frank B. Swift and B. W. Woodward, of Lawrence, in the 
Western Home Journal of Lawrence, November 20, 1879; also letter of Philip W. 
Woodward to F. G. Adams from Leavenworth, September 18, 1897. Woodward, 
a room-mate of Filer at the time of the shooting, loaned him his revolver. Filer 
returned it later, saying that he had shot Jones. Not unnaturally. Filer subse- 
quently denied this. He soon left Kansas and returned to New York. Lenhart 
died during the Civil War as first lieutenant of the Second Indian Regiment of 
the Federal army. 

85. N. Y. Tribune, May 8, 1856; Mrs. Robinson, pp. 201-202; Andreas, p. 126. 

86. Mrs. Robinson, p. 210; N. Y. Tribune, May 13; Phillips, p. 258; N. Y. 
Evening Post, May 13, 1856. 

"Such a state of things as this maddens men and throws them back upon their 
own resources for redress. And it is dreadful to see how all the evil passions rise 
and rage at the recital of these terrible outrages so near home. Children catch 
fire and give vent to the undisguised feelings of their souls in words which under 
other circumstances would seem terrible. O, the depth of revenge in the human 
heart when the powers that should execute justice not only connive at the wrong, 
but abet and help it on, and screen the offender. May Heaven grant us deliver- 
ance soon." — S. L. Adair, Osawatomie, May 16, 1856, to Owen Brown in Hud- 
son, — original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich. 



NOTES 607 

87. N. Y. Tribune, May 15, 1856. 

88. For Butler's own story, see N. Y. Tribune, May 19, 1856; see also Gihon, 
p. 75 et seq.; Phillips, p. 259 et seq. 

89. Katisas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 157; vol. 5, pp. 81-82; 
Gihon, pp. 82-83; Mrs. Robinson, p. 238; Phillips, p. 286; N. Y. Tribune, June 

5. 1856. 

90. Lexington Express, May 20, 1859; Missouri Republican, June 26, 1856; 
Hinton, pp. 78-80; Gihon, p. 83; Phillips, pp. 286-287. Stewart was formerly of 
Bushford, Allegany County, N. Y. See N. Y. Evening Post, June 9, 1856. 

91. Andreas, pp. 127-128; Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 156; N. Y. Tribune, May 19, 1856; 
Charles Robinson, p. 234 et seq.; for 'Letter from a Grand Juror,' see N. Y. 
Tribune, June 9, 1856. 

92. Mrs. Robinson, p. 267 et seq.; Charles Robinson, pp. 237-239. 

93. Reeder's Diary, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. i, p. 13 et 
seq. 

94. Mem.orial to the President from Inhabitants of Kansas, Kansas Historical 
Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 392. 

95. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 394; Andreas, p. 128; Cord- 
ley, p. 93; Phillips, p. 276; Holloway, p. 317. 

96. Phillips, p. 278; Holloway, p. 319; Andreas, pp. 128-129; Kansas Histori- 
cal Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 394. 

97. Andreas, p. 129; Holloway, p. 329; Phillips, pp. 289-290; Gihon, p. 82; 
N. Y. Tribune, June 4, 1856; W M. Paxton, Annals of Platte County, Mo., Kan- 
sas City, 1897, pp. 212-214. 

98. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 158. 

99. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 397-399; Andreas, pp. 129- 
130; Mrs. Robinson, p. 238. 

100. The author's story of the Lawrence raid is drawn from the following 
sources: Memorial to the President from Inhabitants of Kansas, Kansas His- 
torical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 392 et seq.; Mrs. Robinson, pp. 240-248; 
Phillips, pp. 289-309; Gihon, pp. 83-86; Holloway, pp. 329-338; Cordley, pp. 
99-103; Andreas, p. 130; N. Y. Tribune, May 29, 30, June 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 19, 20; 
St. Louis Democrat, May 27, 1856. For a statement of some of the brutalities 
committed by the Border Ruffians, see R. H. Williams's With the Border Ruffians, 
the story of an Englishman who served under Atchison at the taking of Lawrence, 
pp. 83-86; see also testimony of John A. Perry before the Congressional Com- 
mittee, N. Y. Tribune, July 26, 1856. Details of the needless looting and destruc- 
tion of property are sworn to by many witnesses in the Report on Kansas Claims 
already referred to. This is a store-house of valuable information as to the 
property loss inflicted on both sides from November i, 1855, to December i, 
1856. 

loi. Statement of Robert G. Elliott, July 27, 1908; Phillips, p. 299; James F. 
Legate, Kansas Memorial, p. 63. 

102. Andreas, p. 130; Phillips, p. 299; Holloway, pp. 336-337. 

103. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 401; Phillips, pp. 296- 
297; N. Y. Tribune, June 2; Holloway, p. 333. 

104. Eli Thayer, History of the Kansas Crusade, New York, 1889, p. 211. 

105. Horace Greeley, N. Y. Tribune, May 21, 1856. 



6o8 NOTES 



CHAPTER V 

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 

Besides the personal narratives of two of the participants in the Pottawatomie 
murders, Henry Thompson and Salmon Brown, the author has been fortunate in 
finding three members of the Grant family alive to give their testimony, and has 
consulted in addition no less than fifty-six narratives of early settlers, including 
those of H. H. Williams, James Blood, August Bondi, John Speer, John T. Grant, 
James Hanway, O. C. Brown, Martin White, H. C. Pate and others who had a 
more or less intimate knowledge of conditions as they existed at the time of the 
murders. Jason Brown's story, that of John Brown, Jr., Townsley's statements 
and the testimonies in the Oliver minority report of the Howard Committee have 
also been drawn upon, as well as contemporary newspaper publications, besides 
all the lives of Brown and histories of Kansas. It is believed that the narrative 
here given is the first complete story of the crime. 

1. Sanborn, pp. 236-237. 

2. John Brown, Jr., in the Cleveland Leader, November 29, 1883. 

3. Letter of Henry H. Williams, July 20, 1856, in N. Y. Tribune of August 20, 
1856. Cf. also, narrative of Captain Samuel Anderson, a member of the com- 
pany, in the Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

4. John Brown, Jr., Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883. 

5. H. H. Williams, N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 20, 1856; James Hanway, of Capt. 
John Brown, Jr.'s company, in Lawrence Daily Journal, November 27, 1879. 

6. John Brown, Jr., Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883; H. H. Williams, N. Y. 
Tribune, Aug. 20, 1856; C. A. Foster, a member of the Pottawatomie Rifles, to 
F. G. Adams, April 15, 1895, Foster MS., in Kansas Historical Society. 

7. Letter of Jason Brown, Osawatomie, June 28, 1856, to the family at North 
Elba, — original in possession of Miss Thompson, used here for the first time; 
official report of Second Lieut. John R. Church, First U. S. Cavalry, May 26, 1856, 
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 421. Lieut. Church dwells upon 
the fact that the presence of the Free State companies had frightened away two 
families. One of these was undoubtedly that whose slaves were freed by John 
Brown, Jr. 

8. John Brown, Jr., Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883; Jason Brown's state- 
ment of December 13-14, 1908; statement of Salmon Brown, October 11, 1908. 

9. Jason Brown to F. G. Adams, April 2, 1884, at College Hill, Topeka, in 
Kansas Historical Society; statement of Jason Brown, December 13, 1908. 

10. Statement of December 13, 1908. 

11. Martixi Van Buren Jackson to W. E. Connelley, November 6, 1900, in 
Mr. Connelley's possession. 

12. Statement of October 11, 1908. In a letter to Eli Thayer, dated Fort Scott, 
August 4, 1879, George A. Crawford states that John Brown, in Brown's camp 
at Trading Post, Linn County, Kansas, early in January, 1859, speaking to him 
of the Pottawatomie killings, said that "the death of those pro-slavery men had 
been determined upon at a meeting of free-state settlers the day before — that 
he was present at the meeting and, I think, presided, and that the executioners 
were then and there appointed." — Original in G. W. Brown Papers, in Kansas 
Historical Society. 

13. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 279; Bondi's MS. narrative, 
in Kansas Historical Society. 



NOTES 609 

14. Hanway to Hinton, December 5, 1859. — Original in Hinton Papers, 
Kansas Historical Society. 

15. Besides Salmon Brown, the following testify to the cheering that greeted 
the departure of the little company: Jason Brown, John Brown, Jr., and James 
Hanway. See Hanway to Redpath, March 12, i860, quoted in Andreas, p. 604. 

16. It is only fair to state that J. G. Grant testifies that H. H. Williams urged 
George Grant to keep out of the expedition because "something rash" was going 
to be done. Statement of J. G. Grant, San Francisco, Oct. 7, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

17. Confession of Townsley, written out by Attorney Hutchings on December 
4, 1879, and published in the Lawrence Daily Journal, December 10, 1879. Other 
confessions of Townsley, varying slightly from the above, have also been drawn 
upon. Johnson Clarke's version of Townsley's confession is in the United States 
Biographical Dictionary, Kansas volume, 1879, p. 526; a third version is in An- 
dreas, pp. 603-604, this having been made Aug. 3, 1882. 

18. John Brown, Jr., in Cleveland Press, May 3, 1895; statement of Jason 
Brown, December 13, 1908. "Gen." Bierce's title came from a northern Ohio 
secret society, the "Grand Eagles," organized to attack the Canadian Govern- 
ment. The arms given by Bierce to John Brown had belonged to this society, 
and included artillery broadswords that bore either on hilt or blade the device of 
an eagle, and which were the identical weapons used in the Pottawatomie kill- 
ings. See Jason Brown's statement of December 28, 1908; Western Reserve His- 
torical Society Tracts, vol. 2, pp. 4-5; for Bierce's own statement of his gift of 
arms to John Brown, see address delivered at Akron, Ohio, on 'The Execution 
of John Brown,' Columbus, 1865. 

19. John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown. 

20. Statement of George Grant, San Jose, Cal., September 25, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

21. Statement of Dr. W. B. Fuller to J. H. Holmes, December 7, 1903, in pos- 
session of author. 

22. James H. Hanway to R. J. Hinton, December 5, 1859, Hinton Papers, 
Kansas Historical Society. 

23. See 'Old John Brown,' by Capt. J. M. Anthony, Leavenworth Weekly 
Times, February 14, 1884. 

24. Colonel James Blood, Lawrence, November 29, 1879, to G. W. Brown, 
published in Leavenworth Weekly Press, December 4, 1879. Neither Salmon 
Brown nor Henry Thompson can remember this meeting with Colonel Blood. 
But as Colonel Blood gave his testimony with unswerving precision on several 
occasions, and made his original statement before the appearance of Townsley's 
confession, the author is of the opinion that it must be accepted as correct, par- 
ticularly in view of the accuracy of his detailed description of the party he 
met. 

25. Townsley, December 6, 1879. 

26. Statement of Henry Thompson, August and September, 1908. 

27. Statement of Mrs. B. F. Jackson, Topeka, Kansas, August, 1908, to K. Mayo. 
But Henry Sherman's character was not so black as to keep the Commission- 
ers on Kansas Claims from awarding $1035 damages to the administrator of 
his estate for cattle taken illegally by John Brown and others (Report, vol. 3, 
Part 2, pp. 1184-1190). 

28. Letter of Maggie Moore and Mahala Doyle to A. A. Lawrence, Chatta- 
nooga, May 26, 1885, in the Massachusetts Historical Society Library. 

29. Joint interview of G. W. and Henry Grant, given in Lawrence Journal 
office, December 4, 1879, and published the next day. 

30. John Brown, Jr., Cleveland Leader, November 29, 1883; statement of 



6io NOTES 

Henry Thompson, August, 1908; statement of Salmon Brown, October, 1908; 
statement of Jason Brown, December 13, 1908; E. A. Coleman, in The Kansas 
Memorial, a report of the Old Settlers' Meeting at Bismarck, Grove, Kansas, 
Charles S. deed, Editor, Kansas City, Mo., 1880, pp. 196-197. 

31. John Brown as viewed by Henry Clay Pate, New York, 1859 (pamphlet). 

32. Martin White, Speech in the Kansas House of Representatives, reported in 
the Leavenworth Journal, March 12, 1857. 

33. Oliver Minority Report to the Howard Committee Report, pp. 105-106. 

34. Statement of Salmon Brown, October, 1908. 

35. Ibid.; also statement of Jason Brown, December, 1908. 

36. Howard Report Appendix, ex parte testimony, p. 1193. 

37. Ibid., pp. 1194-1195. 

38. Ibid., pp. 1197-1198. 

39. Ibid., pp. 1195-1197. 

40. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, July, 1902, pp. 31-32. 

41. Statement of Jason Brown to K. Mayo; also his statement to F. G. Adams, 
Topeka, April 2, 1884. 

42. Jason Brown to K. Mayo, December, 1908. 

43. Jason Brown; Salmon Brown. 

44. Statement of J. G. Grant, San Francisco, October 7, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

45. Reprinted in Overbrook (Kansas) Citizen, June 25, 1908, from Watertown 
(New York) Reformer of 1856. 

46. O. C. Brown Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

47. H. L. Jones to F. G. Adams, January 20, 1879, in Kansas Historical 
Society. 

48. George Thompson, Twin Mound, Kansas, July 30, 1894, in J. H. Holmes 
Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

49. Also found in Andreas, p. 132. 

50. Shannon to Pierce, Lecompton, May 31, 1856, Kansas Historical Society 
Collections, vol. 4, pp. 414-418. 

51. Lawrence Journal, December 11, 1879. 

52. Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, privately printed for 
C. and E. B. Stoeckel, 1903, vol. 2, pp. 8-9. Governor Robinson testified that 
Major Sedgwick was not only very kind to the Free State prisoners at Leaven- 
worth, but a warm sympathizer with their cause. Major Sedgwick was, of course, 
misled, in one respect: there was no mutilation of the Pottawatomie victims. 

53. Original in Hanway Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

54. MS. by James Hanway, in Kansas Historical Society. At the meeting of 
the Anti-Slavery Society in Lawrence, Dec. 19, 1859 (reported in the New York 
Herald of Jan. 2, i860). Governor Robinson said: "It made no difference whether 
he [Brown] raised his hand or otherwise; [at Pottawatomie] he was present, aid- 
ing and advising to it, and did not attempt to stop the bloodshed, and is, of course, 
responsible, though justifiable, according to his understanding of affairs." Rob- 
inson also stated in this meeting that he himself thought the murders justifiable 
at the time. The Anti-Slavery Society, after the discussion, voted that the mur- 
ders were not unjustifiable, and that they were performed "from the sad neces- 
sity ... to defend the lives and liberties of the settlers in that region." 

55. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 207-208. The Rev. E. Nute 
wrote from Boston to R. J. Hinton, June 4, 1893, that he was in Boston at the 
time of the murders; that he returned soon after, and heard nothing but ex- 
pressions of satisfaction concerning them. — Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical 
Society. 



NOTES 6ii 

56. John B. Manes, son of Poindexter Manes, in the Garnet, Kan., Plain- 
dealer, January 9, 1880, in Kansas Historical Society; S. J. Shively, 'The Pottawa- 
tomie Massacre,' in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 179; Andreas, 
p. 603. 

57. Martin's The First Two Years of Kansas, p. 19. 

58. Capt. J. M. Anthony, in Leavenworth Weekly Times, February 14, 1884; 
James F. Legate, in Topeka Weekly Capital, February 28, 1884; Hinton, p. 87. 

59. Statement of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Put-in Bay, November, 1908, to K. 
Mayo. 

60. Original in possession of Miss Mary E. Thompson. 

61. Statement of Mrs. Mary E. Brown, San Jose, California, to K. Mayo, Sep- 
tember 24, 1908. 

62. Statement of Mrs. B. F. Jackson, Topeka, August, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

63. See, for instance, Gihon, pp. 75, 85, 91, 98. 

64. Mrs. Robinson, p. 328. In a later statement, in possession of the author, 
Mrs. Robinson affirms, however, that her charge above mentioned was made 
only on the authority of a rumor circulated by Redpath, which was later entirely 
discredited. 

65. Statement of George Grant, San Josd, Cal., September 25, 1908. It is 
to be noted, in this connection, that J. G. Grant, his brother, stated, on Oct. 7. 
1908, in San Francisco, to Miss Mayo: "Prior to Pottawatomie, no violence had 
been committed in our region on either side. The Free State men had, however, 
a general sense of danger from the continued threats from Missouri, and from 
depredations elsewhere rife." According to John T. Grant (see his letter to Rev. 
L. W. Spring, in Spring's ' John Brown,' Proceedings Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society, March, 1900), Henry Sherman told Mrs. J. T. Grant that Morse and 
Weiner had been ordered to leave for giving ammunition to the Pottawatomie 
Rifles. 

66. Col. James Blood, in Topeka Weekly Capital and Farmers' Journal, January 
I, 1884. 

67. Mrs. Mary E. Brown; George W. Grant, statements of September, 1908. 

68. J. H. Holmes papers, in possession of the author. 

69. M. V. B. Jackson to W. E. Connelley, Emporia, Kansas, November 6, 1900. 
— Original in possession of Mr. Connelley. 

70. Garnett, Kan., Plaindealer, January 9, 1880. 

71. Mr. Adair's son, Charles S. Adair, is also of the opinion that this list was sub- 
mitted. In a long and interesting letter, written in May, 1856, to his " Bro. and 
Sis. Hand," the elder Adair tells the story of the massacre and says that some 
of the murdered men "had made threats, had threatened the lives of Free State 
men, and acted most outrageously for some time past," but makes no mention 
of an Index Expurgatorius of the Free State men. The original letter is in pos- 
session of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich. 

72. The Kansas Memorial, p. 196. 

73. Statement of Col. Edward Anderson to K. Mayo, Boston, January 10, 
1908; see also letter, quoting Brown, of George A. Crawford to Eli Thayer, Fort 
Scott, Kan., Aug. 4, 1879, in G. W. Brown Papers, in Kansas Historical Society. 
I, 74. John Speer, in Topeka Commonwealth, January 30, 1886. 

75. F. G. Adams to R. J. Hinton, October 25, 1883, in Kansas Historical 
Society. 

76. The original of the Pomeroy letter is in the possession of the author. 

77. Wilder's Annals, p. 99. 

78. Howard Report, p. 107. 



6i2 NOTES 

79. Samuel Walker to Judge James Hanway, Lawrence, February 8, 1875, 
Hanway Papers, in Kansas Historical Society. 

80. F. B. Sanborn's open letter to Mr. Winthrop, in Boston Transcript, De- 
cember 6, 1884. 

81. This charge of John Brown, Jr., is in the Topeka Commonwealth ol Feb- 
ruary 16, 1884. For ex-Governor Robinson's reply and the continuation of the 
controversy, see Topeka Commonwealth of 1884. 

82. Statement of Henry Thompson in J. H. Holmes Papers. 

83. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 208. 

84. Judge Thomas Russell to C. A. Foster, Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical 
Society. 

85. Recollections of Forty Years, by John Sherman, New York, 1896, p. 100. 

86. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 78. 

87. For the Hamilton murders, see Andreas, pp. 1104-1105; William P. Tom- 
linson, Kansas in 1858; New York, 1859, pp. 61-76. 

88. Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 26. Series, vo\. i, Boston, June, 
1884. 

89. "The truth is that the Pottawatomie massacre was so at variance with 
the whole course and policy of the Free-State party in Kansas up to that time, 
that its horrible details were not credited in the East. . . . The testimony of 
impartial observers was that the proslavery men were lawless and aggressive, 
and the Free-State settlers submissive, industrious, and anxious for liberty and 
order. Their previous good character prevented the country from believing that 
the killing done in their name by one of their number was an unprovoked mas- 
sacre." — Rhodes, vol. 2, pp. 199-200. 

90. In justice to Mr. Salmon Brown and to the reader, it is only fair that there 
should be appended to the discussion of the Pottawatomie tragedy the following 
letter, particularly as it has been printed in an altered and misleading form which 
conveys the denial, not found in its original, that John Brown was present at 
the Pottawatomie murders. It will be seen from this letter that Salmon Brown 
does not deny that his father was present, but evades a direct statement, as did 
his father. The letter was written in a period of great stress and anxiety, subse- 
quent to the execution of John Brown, when it did not seem advisable to let the 
real facts come out. The original of this letter is in the possession of the family of 
the late Dr. Joshua Young, of Winchester, Mass. 

Rev Joshua Young. North Elba, N. Y. Dec. 27th '59. ' 

Dear Sir: — 

Your letter to my mother was received to-night. You wished me to give you 
the facts in regard to the Pottawatomie execution or murder, and whether my 
Father was a participator in the act. I was one of his company at the time of the 
homicides and was never away from him one hour at a time after we took up arms 
in Kansas. Therefore I say positively that he was not a participator in the deed. 

Although I should think none the less of him if he had been for it was the grand- 
est thing that was ever done in Kansas. It was all that saved the territory from 
being run over with drunken land pirates from the Southern States. That was 
the first act in the history of our country that proved to the demon of Slavery 
that there was as much room to give blows as to take them it was done to save 
life and to strike terror through there wicked ranks. I should like to write you 
more about it but I have not time now. We all feel very grateful to you for your 
kindness to us. 

Yours Respectfully 

Salmon Brown. 



NOTES 613 



CHAPTER VI 
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 

. I. Rhodes, vol. 2, pp. 198-200. 

2. For a strong expression of Mr. Garrison's opinion as to the Kansas policies 
of Beecher and Theodore Parker, see the Liberator, vol. 26, p. 42. 

3. Pro-Slavery Circular, in Squatter Sovereign, July 15, 1856. 

4. Shannon to Pierce, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 416, 

5. W. H. Coffin, 'The Settlement of the Friends in Kansas,' Kansas Historical 
Society Collections, vol. 7, pp. 337-338. 

6. N. Y. Tribune, June 17, 1856. 

7. Mrs. Sara T. L. Robinson, on pp. 273-274 of her book, describes her ap- 
proach to the Territory on June 3 from the East. Rumors of war increased as the 
Border was neared. Inflammatory extras depicting the Pottawatomie murders in 
lurid terms, and inciting to revenge and reprisal, were current in western Missouri, 
and the excited people were everywhere preparing to respond. "'Murder is the 
watchword and midnight deed,' said one journal, 'of a scattered and scouting 
band of abolitionists. . . . Men peaceable and quiet, cannot travel on the public 
roads of Kansas. . . . No Southerner dare venture alone and unarmed.'" 

8. Correspondence N. Y. Tribune from Fort Scott, June 4, printed July i, 1856. 

9. Mrs. Robinson, in the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle, December 12, 1878. 

ID. Reprinted in the St. Louis Republican, June 14, 1856; see also John Sher- 
man, Recollections of Forty Years, p. 100. 

11. Statement of Jason Brown to K. Mayo, December 13, 1908. 

12. William Hutchinson ("Randolph") to the N. Y. Times, from Lawrence, 
June 23, 1856; in Hutchinson Scrap-Book, Kansas Historical Society. 

13. N. Y. Tribune, July 2, 1856. 

14. Statement of Jason Brown as above. The original official notes of this 
examination of John Brown, Jr., Jason Brown and their fellow prisoners, before 
the U. S. Commissioner, Edward Hoogland, are in possession of Mr. M. W. 
Blackman, Cleveland, Ohio. 

15. From an unpublished MS. of Owen Brown, in the possession of Miss 
Mary E. Thompson. 

16. Bondi, in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, pp. 282-283. 

17. James Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown, Boston, i860, 
pp. 112-114. 

18. Bondi's narrative; also Owen Brown's story. 

19. Rebellion Records, Series i, vol. 36, p. 778, report of P. H. Sheridan, Major- 
General commanding; also, report of General Custer, ibid., p. 818; see also Uni- 
versity of Virginia, New York, 1904, vol. 2, p. 54. Pate thus challenged Horace 
Greeley for impugning his bravery: "If you doubt that I will fight you can have 
a chance to try me in any way you want to, at any time you want to. My 
address for the present is, 89, Guy's National, Washington, D. C, and for the 
future, Lecompton, Kansas Territory, until further notice;" also statement of 
Major Thomas S. Taliaferro, Richmond, April 23, 1909, to K. Mayo. 

20. Owen Brown, in the Springfield Republican, January 14, 1889. 

21. John Brown as viewed by H. Clay Pate. 

22. Quoted in Sanborn, p. 239. 

23. John Brown, by H. Clay Pate. 

24. John Brown to his family, June, 1856, Sanborn, p. 240. 



6 14 NOTES 

25. John Brown several times wrote out the list of those who took part in the 
engagement. The following, from the original in the Kansas Historical Society, 
is the roster as he wrote it: — 

Saml T Shore, Capt. Silas More. David Hendricks (Horse Guard). Hiram 
McAllister. Mr. Parmely (wounded) Silvester Harris. O A Carpenter (wounded). 
Augustus Shore. Mr. Townsley of Pottowatomie. WmBHayden. JohnMcWhin- 
ney. Montgomery Shore. Elkanah Timmons. T. Weiner. A. Bondy. Hugh 
McWhinney. Charles Keiser Elizur Hill. Wm Davis. Mr. Cochran of Pot- 
towatomie. Henry Thompson (dangerously wounded) Elias Basinger. Owen 
Brown. Fredk. Brown (horse guard) Salmon Brown (wound & cripled.) Oliver 
Brown. 

John Brown. 
List of names of men wounded in the battle of Palmyra or Black Jack: also 
of Eight volunteers who maintained their position during that fight: & to whom 
the surrender was made June 2d 1856. 

O A Carpenter -1 wounded badly; Thompson dangerously 

Henry Thompson J 

Mr Parmely }- wounded slightly in nose also in Arm so that he had to leave 

the ground 
Charles Keiser 
Elizur Hill 
Wm David 
Hugh McWhinney 
Mr. Cochran of Pottawatomie 
Salmon Brown (accidentally wounded after the fight & liable to remain a 

cripple) 
Oliver Brown 

Names of all who either fought or guarded the Horses during the fight at Pal- 
myra June 2d 1856 will be found on the other side 
Respectfully submited by 

John Brown 
Mess. Whitman ^ 
Eldridge Y 
& others ) 

26. Annual Report of the Secretary of War, Exec. Doc. No. i , 34th Congress, 
3d session. House of Representatives, pp. 44-45- 

27. Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, vol. 2, pp. 7-8. 

28. For this raid the authorities are August Bondi, MS. narrative (hitherto 
unpublished) in the Kansas Historical Society Library; testimony of J. D. 
Pennypacker, one of Pate's men, in the Richmond Despatch of November 19, 
1859; the lengthy testimony of J. M. Bernard in the Report on Kansas Claims, 
vol. 3, Part I, pp. 842-862, where are also the sworn statements of six other wit- 
nesses; letter of J. M. Bernard in the Missouri Republican, quoted in the N. Y. 
Tribune oi June 20, 1856. The same incident is referred to in the Oliver Minority 
Report, p. 108, but the date is erroneously given as May 27 and 28. Bernard was 
awarded $9,524.91 on May 6, 1859, for the damage inflicted by Brown's men. 

29. That it was Col. Preston, and not one Fain, or Marshal Donaldson, as 
variously stated, appears from Gov. Shannon's letter of June 4, 1856, to Col. 
Sumner, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. i, p. 122; and from a letter 
of J. Bernard to Missouri Republican, written at Westport, Monday, June 9, 1856. 

30. Statements of Salmon Brown and Henry Thompson of October 11, 1908, 



NOTES 615 

and August 22, 1908, respectively; also letter of J. Bernard as above, quoted in 
the N. Y. Tribune of June 20. The story is variously told by different chroni- 
clers. 

31. Gov. Shannon to the President, Lecompton, June 17, 1856, Kansas His- 
torical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 386-387. 

32. Correspondence of Gov. Shannon, Kansas Historical Society Collections, 
vol. 4, p. 414. 

33. Proclamation of Gov. Shannon, Annual Report of the Secretary of War 
for 1856, pp. 47-48; see also Executive Minutes of Gov. Shannon, Kansas His- 
torical Society Publications, vol. i, p. 121. 

34. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 421. 

35. .Andreas, pp. 132-133; N. Y. Tribune, June 16, 1856. 

36. Bondi MSS., Kansas Historical Society. 

37. Andreas, p. 134; O. C. Brown's letter of June 24, 1856, Kansas Historical 
Society; Mrs. Robinson, p. 278; Phillips, pp. 374-375; N. Y. Tribune of June 14 
and June 17, 1856. 

38. Gihon, p. 90; Phillips, pp. 364-369; Mrs. Robinson, p. 283; N. Y. Tribune, 
June 26 and 27, 1856; Herald of Freedom, May 16, 1857; Holloway, p. 361. 

39. Report of Secretary of War for 1856, p. 49. 

40. Phillips, p. 380. 

41. Report of Lieut. Mcintosh to acting Governor Woodson, Kansas Histor- 
ical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 391. 

42. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

43. Mrs. Robinson, p. 283; Phillips, p. 380; see also N. Y. Tribune, July 8, for 
statement of robberies; report on Kansas Claims, vol. 3, Part i, pp. 206-207. 

44. N. Y. Tribune, June 19; Mrs. Robinson, pp. 284-285. 

45. N. Y. Tribune, June 26 and 27; Mrs. Robinson, p. 298. 

46. Gihon, p. 91; N. Y. Tribune, June i, 3 and 11. 

47. Phillips, p. 389. 

48. Gladstone, p. 281; Gihon, p. 93; Cordley, p. 113; Mrs. Robinson, p. 324; 
'Life of Samuel V^IaXker,' Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 6, pp. 268-269: 
Andreas, p. 142. 

49. Cordley, pp. 105-107; statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908; 
Andreas, pp. 320 and 427; Mrs. Robinson, p. 328; N.Y. rn^wK^, Sept. 8 and 9, 1856. 

50. Andreas, p. 133. 

51. For instances of Free State thefts of horses owned by pro-slavery men, see 
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 10, p. 645. The Oliver Minority Report, 
pp. 1 199-1205, gives many instances of robberies of pro-slavery stores and houses 
immediately after the Pottawatomie murders. The long report of the Commis- 
sioners of Kansas, already referred to, should also be studied in this connection. 

52. Quoted in N. Y. Tribune of June 18, 1856. 
53- Ibid. 

54. Squatter Sovereign, July 15, 1856. 

55. Proclamation of acting Governor Woodson, Annual Report of the Secretary 
of War for 1856, pp. 57-58. 

56. See Report of Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 26, 56, 61; Shannon to Sum- 
ner, June 23, Executive Minutes, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. i, 
p. 123. For a sample of the rejoicing of pro-slavery papers when Sumner was 
relieved, see Richmond Enquirer of September 5, 1856. 

57. Secretary of War's Report for 1856, p. 69. 

58. Gen. Edwin Vose Sumner, born in Boston, January 30, 1797, entered the 
army in 1819 as second lieutenant of infantry. He served in the Black Hawk 



6i6 NOTES 

War, and led the cavalry charge at Cerro Gordo, Mexico, in April, 1847; was 
Governor of New Mexico, 1851-53; he died at Syracuse, N. Y., March 21, 1863, 
as a brigadier-general in the regular army and major-general of volunteers, from 
disease resulting from the Fredericksburg campaign, in which he commanded 
a division. He had the respect of the army as an able and gallant soldier, espe- 
cially in Indian warfare. In a letter dated "Camp of U. S. Cavalry, near Lecomp- 
ton, July 7, 1856," addressed to Col. Sumner and bearing also the signatures 
of Geo. W. Smith, Gaius Jenkins, John Brown, Jr., Henry H. Williams and Geo. 
W. Deitzler, Charles Robinson wrote as follows: 

"Whatever judgment the people of Kansas or the country may pass upon the 
conduct of the administrator of Government, or I should rather say, adminis- 
trator of outrage, in Kansas, all parties must concede to you, personally, the 
character of an honorable, impartial, high-minded and efficient officer; notwith- 
standing, in the discharge of your official duty, your superiors incur the censure 
of persons of all shades of political faith." — See N. Y. Tribune, July 24, 1856. 

59. The correspondence of Shannon, Woodson and Sumner, and between 
Jefferson Davis and Sumner, and the proclamation of acting Governor Woodson, 
will be found in the Annual Report of the Secretary of War for 1856. See also 
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4; and vol. 9, pp. 360-363. 

60. Philadelphia North American, quoted in the Mobile Daily Tribune of Au- 
gust I, 1856; Mrs. Robinson, pp. 309-315; Phillips, pp. 392-406; N. Y. Tribune, 
July 10 and 19, 1856; letter of James Redpath, dated Topeka, July 4, in the 
Milwaukee Sentinel of July 17, 1856. 

61. Statements of Salmon Brown and Henry Thompson; letter of S. L. Adair 
to T. H. Hand and Stephen Davis and families, Osawatomie, July 17, 1856. — 
Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis. 

62. Quoted in W. A. Phillips's article, in Atlantic Monthly for December, 1879. 

63. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. 

64. John Brown, Jr., to Jason Brown, dated Camp U. S. Cavalry, near Le- 
compton, Kansas, July 30, 1856; S. L. Adair, Osawatomie, July 17, 1856, wrote 
to T. H. Hand and Stephen Davis and families as follows: " Bro. J. B. and un- 
married sons expect to leave the territory immediately. They are known as fight- 
ing men and are a terror to Mo." — Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis. 

65. Statement of Salmon Brown, Oct. 11, 1908. 

66. MS. diary of Samuel J. Reader, Topeka, Kansas, in his possession. 

67. Record of Court-Martial of Private A. D. Stevens, Company F, First 
Dragoons, May, 1855, in office of Judge-Advocate-General, War Department, 
Washington; also letter of Judge-Advocate-General G. B. Davis, U. S. Army, 
November 23, 1908, to author. 

68. Statement of Henry Thompson, August, 1908, and of Salmon Brown, Oc- 
tober, 1908; the story of Samuel Walker, Kansas Historical Society Collections, 
vol. 6, pp. 267-268, also treats of John Brown's movements at this juncture. The 
invalids were taken in an ox-wagon as far as Tabor, Iowa, where Owen was 
especially kindly received and remained until he had fully recuperated, when he 
returned to Kansas. The progress homeward of Oliver Brown, Henry Thompson 
and Salmon Brown, together with William Thompson, a brother of Henry, whom 
they met on their way out and dissuaded from entering Kansas, is thus described 
by Salmon Brown: "We other four bought a double buggy and harness from the 
Oberlin people on credit, at Tabor, drove to Iowa City, sold the horses, sent back 
the money to pay for the wagon and all four went home. The horses for the double 
buggy we came by thus: we heard, on the way through Nebraska, that some 
pro-slavery men were after us. Oliver, who was always a dare-devil, and William 



NOTES 617 

Thompson ambushed these men, deliberately turning aside for that purpose. 
The men, ordered off their horses, took it for a regular hold-up in force, and sur- 
rendered their animals. Oliver and William immediately jumped on and lit out 
for Tabor. It was these horses that took us across Iowa." The need of converting 
pro-slavery animals into good anti-slavery stock was thus urgent with the Brown 
sons in peaceful, placid Nebraska as it had been in bleeding Kansas. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 

1. Andreas, p. 138; T. W. Higginson and other correspondents, in the N. Y. 
Tribune of July 7, 1856; N. Y. Tribune, July 14, 1856; statement of Thomas W. 
Bicknell, Providence, R. I., Jan. 24, 1908, to K. Mayo; the Squatter Sovereign of 
July I, 1856, under the caption of " More Arms Captured!" made this pro-slavery 
comment, characteristic of the view of the Border Ruffian press: "On the way 
up the river they were boasting of what they would do, should any one attempt to 
molest them. . . . When they arrived at the Political Quarantine the whole party 
of seventy-eight, all of them 'armed to the teeth,' surrendered to a company of 
twenty Border Ruffians. ... If this is the material we have to encounter in 
Kansas we have but little to fear of the result. Fifty thousand such 'cattle' could 
not subdue the Spartan band now in possession of Kansas." 

2. Andreas, pp. 138-139; Holloway, pp. 363-364; N. Y. Tribune, July 9, 15 
and 17, 1856. 

3. Andreas, pp. 136-137; Chicago Daily Tribune, June 2, 1856; John Speer's 
Lane, pp. 101-107. 

4. The Republican Party, edited by John D. Long, p. 47. (No place of publi- 
cation given.) 

5. James Ford Rhodes, in the Atlantic Monthly, May, 1909. 

6. Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, 1st session, vol. xli, pp. 1009-1013. 

7. Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, 1st session, vol. xli, p. 869. 

8. Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, ist session, vol. xl, p. 1873, for action of 
the House against Whitfield and Reeder. 

9. Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, 1st session, vol. xxxix, p. 1541. 

ID. For a more detailed narrative of the struggle over Kansas, see Rhodes, 
vol. 2, pp. 201-202. 

11. See N. Y. Tribune, Jan. 27, 1857, for report of Horace White, Assistant 
Secretary of the Committee. 

12. For Samuel Walker's story of this ride, see Kansas Historical Society Col- 
lections, vol. 6, pp. 267-268. 

13. Walker to Hanway, from Lawrence, Feb. 18, 1875; Hanway Papers, Kan- 
sas Historical Society. 

14. Andreas, p. 142; Bondi MSS.; Charles R. Tuttle, History of Kansas, Madi- 
son, Wis., 1876, p. 358; J. H. Holmes's testimony, N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 21, 1856. 

15. Bondi MSS., Part 3, Kansas Historical Society. 

16. Printed in the Missouri Democrat of Aug. 27, 1856, and reprinted in the 
N. Y. Tribune of Sept. 8, 1856; Squatter Sovereign, Aug. 26, 1856; see also Leaven- 
worth City Journal, Aug. 17, 1856; Missouri Republican, Aug. 23, 1856. 

17. Bondi MSS. 

18. Original in possession of Miss Thompson. 

19. See their manifesto in the Squatter Sovereign of Aug. 26, 1856. 



6i8 NOTES 

20. "Randolph's" letters of Aug. 29 and Sept. 7, 1856, in the N. Y. Times. 

21. Article entitled 'Old John Brown,' in John Brown Scrap-Book No. 3, 
Kansas Historical Society. 

22. Statement of Ezra Robinson at Paola, Kansas, Oct. 3, 1908, to the au- 
thor. 

23. Statement of Mrs. Mary Grant Brown, San Jose, Cal., Sept. 24, 1908, to 
K. Mayo. Ephraim Coy testifies similarly to a panic of the Border Ruffians 
on hearing that John Brown was coming with six hundred rifles and a thousand 
men. See MS. entitled 'Kansas Experiences of Ephraim Coy,' Hyatt Papers, 
Kansas Historical Society. 

24. Statement of R. G. Elliott, July 27, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

25. Quoted in N. Y. Tribune of Aug. 25, 1856. 

26. Statement of Major James B. Abbott, Kansas Historical Society Collec- 
tions, vols. 1-2, p. 221. This cannon is now in the Kansas Historical Society. 

27. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vols. 1-2, pp. 218-219. 

28. Holloway, p. 379. 

29. Letter to the Editor of the Mobile Tribune, reprinted in N. Y. Tribune, 
Aug. 23, 1856. 

30. Andreas, pp. 142-143; Cordley, p. 115; Holloway, p. 379; Mrs. Robinson, 
pp. 324-325; N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 25 and 29, 1856. 

31. The best account of the Fort Titus affair is to be found in Capt. Samuel 
Walker's narrative already referred to, in the Kansas Historical Society Collec- 
tions, vol. 6, pp. 269-273. Captain Shombre was a member of James H. Lane's 
party, and had therefore but just arrived in the Territory; see also Cordley, 
pp. 1 15-120; Speer's Lane, p. 115; and Andreas, pp. 142-143. 

32. Statement of Luke F. Parsons to the author, Salina, Kansas, Oct. 7, 1908. 

33. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908. 

34. John Brown, Jr., to John Brown, Aug. 11, 1856. — Original in the posses- 
sion of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. 

35. Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. i, p. 131. 

36. N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 29, 1856; Andreas, p. 143. 

37. Andreas, p. 143. Tribute to Shannon, by B. F. Simpson, Kansas Historical 
Society Publications, vol. i, pp. 87-91. 

38. Andreas, p. 143; Executive Minutes, Kansas Historical Society Publica- 
tions, vol. I, p. 131; Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 403. 

39. Letter of Jan. 14, i860, of Martin White, in Bates County, Mo., Standard, 
Jan., i860; Bondi; J. H. Holmes to Gov. Geary, Oct. 2, 1856, in Executive 
Papers of 1856, in Kansas Historical Society. In an appeal to the public printed in 
the Squatter Sovereign of Aug. 26, 1856, and signed by Atchison, Russell, Boone 
and Stringfellow, the following appears: "On the 13th inst., a party numbering 
some fifty attacked the house of Mr. White in Lykins Co., and drove him into 
Missouri, robbing him of everything. He is a Free State man, but sustains the 
laws, and was attacked for attempting to procure the arrest of the murderers of 
Wilkinson." 

40. See Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 737, letter of Gov. Geary 
to Williams and Heiskell; joint letter of Totten and Wilson to acting Governor 
Woodson, same volume, p. 743; statement of C. S. Adair, Osawatomie, Oct. 2, 
1908, to the author; statement of J. G. Grant, San Francisco, Oct. 7, 1908, to 
K. Mayo; Andreas, p. 605; letter of Daniel Woodson to Lewis Cass, Lecompton, 
March 31, 1857, in the Executive Minutes of 1857, in Kansas Historical Society. 

41. From John Brown's Memorandum-Book No. 2. — Original in Boston Pub- 
lic Library. 



NOTES 619 

42. Statement of C. G. Allen to James Redpath, undated, Hinton Papers, 
Kansas Historical Society. 

43. This narrative of South Middle Creek is drawn from the statements of 
Capt. Cline, Holmes, Bondi, George Grant, Thomas Bcdoe, C. G. Allen, all in 
the Kansas Historical Society except Capt. Cline's, which is in the Tribune of 
Sept. 17, 1856; also the sworn statements of Thomas Rice, James N. Gibson, 
R. W. Wood, Benjamin F. Brantley, R. E. Noel, J. H. Little and William Rogers 
(from whom Brown's men stole horses and other property), all in the Report on 
Kansas Claims, vol. 3, Part 2. A confirmatory letter of S. L. Adair of Aug. 13, 
1856, to his " Bro & Sis. Davis" is in the possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis at Kala- 
mazoo, Mich. 

44. John Brown the Hero, by J. W. Winkley, M. D. , Boston, 1905, pp. 71- 

72. 

45. Ibid., pp. 79-81; Holmes testimony, Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical 

Society. 

46. Bedoe's testimony, Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical Society. See Report 
of H. J. Strickler on the claims of the citizens of Kansas Territory, House Misc. 
Doc. No. 43, 35th Congress, 2d session, 1859, p. 17, for petition of Thomas H. 
Brown, of Linn County, containing list of property, clothing, household gear 
and live stock taken from him and his brother [Capt.] John E. Brown, by John 
Brown of Osawatomie, on this raid. Similar statements of losses inflicted by 
Brown's men are in the Report of the Commissioners on Kansas Claims. 

47. Bondi; 'Old John Brown,' by Capt. J. M. Anthony, Leavenworth Weekly 
Times, Feb. 14, 1884; statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908. 

48. J. H. Holmes, MS. story of his experiences at Osawatomie, in possession 
of the author. 

49. Letter of A. G. Hawes to J. H. Holmes, San Francisco, Feb. 26, 1895, in 
possession of the author; the same to F. G. Adams, San Francisco, Aug. 13, 1889, 
Kansas Historical Society; the Rev. S. L. Adair to Mrs. S. C. Davis, Osawatomie, 
Aug. 29, 1856, in possession of Mrs. Davis. 

50. The following sources have been consulted, among others, in the prepara- 
tion of the story of the battle of Osawatomie: Narratives of Bartow Darrach, 
N. Y. Evening Post, Sept. 15, 1856; George Grant, J. G. Grant, August Bondi, 
James H. Holmes, Thomas Bedoe, Joseph R. Morey, J. M. Anthony, Mary Fuller, 
O. C. Brown, Luke F. Parsons, Alexander G. Hawes, Charles S. Adair, Robert 
Reynolds, James J. Holbrook, Robert W. Wood, Thomas Roberts, Spencer K. 
Brown, George Cutter, Nelson J. Roscoe, Morgan Cronkhite, Dr. John Doy; 
contemporary letters of the Rev. and Mrs. S. L. Adair, Dr. W. W. Updegraff, 
Jason Brown, Capt. James B. Cline, George B. Gill, James Hanway, Lydia S. 
Hall, Mrs. S. A. Stevens, C. G. Allen, Sperry Dye, Samuel Anderson, George 
Cutter, Mary E. Jackson, William Chesnut and John Brown; on the pro-slavery 
side, the Rev. Martin White, Gen. J. W. Reid, Capt. Jernigan, James Chiles, 
Congrave Jackson, Capt. G. M. B. Maughas, W. Limerick (in the Weekly Mis- 
souri Statesman for Sept. 5, 1856), the Missouri Republican, the Missouri States- 
man, the Leavenworth Herald, the Jefferson Enquirer, the St. Louis Morning 
Herald, the St. Louis Evening News ; anti-slavery newspapers: the N. Y. Tribune, 
the Liberator, the New York Evening Post, the St. Louis Democrat ; also official 
report of Gen. P. F. Smith and Gov. Geary, and of acting Gov. Woodson, Kansas 
Historical Society Collections, vol. 4; also statements and letters of Mrs. Emma 
Adair Remington and Mr. C. S. Adair, of Osawatomie, to the author. A particu- 
larly valuable story of the conflict is the joint letter of the Rev. and Mrs. Adair, 
under date of Aug. 29 and Sept. 2, 1856, to Mrs. S. C. Davis, in whose possession 



620 NOTES 

the original now is, as is Mr. Adair's letter to Mrs. Hand, Osawatomie, Sept. 
2, 1856, which well supplements the narrative. 

51. Quoted in Leavenworth Journal, March 12, 1857. 

52. N. Y. Tribune, Sept. 17, 1856. 

53. Statement of Ezra Robinson to the author at Paola, Kansas, Oct. 3, 1908. 

54. Missouri Weekly Statesman, Sept. 5, 1856; St. Louis Daily Democrat, Sept. 
8, 1856. 

55. St. Louis Intelligencer, Sept. 6, 1856, copied from Glasgow Times of Sept. 

4. 1856. 

56. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

57. Original in possession of Francis J. Garrison, Lexington, Mass. 

58. Original manuscript in possession of Mrs. B. W. Woodward, Lawrence, 
Kansas. 

59. Statement of Joseph H. Morey, a prisoner, in the Rochester (N. Y.) Daily 
Democrat of Sept. 12, 1856; see also testimony of Robert Reynolds, in Report on 
Kansas Claims, vol. 3, Part 2, pp. 1101-1103. 

60. See Spencer Kellogg Brown, his Life in Kansas and Death as a Spy, edited 
by George Gardner Smith, New York, 1903. 

61. Report of Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 90-92. 

62. Ibid., pp. 29-31. 

63. Walker's Narrative, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol, 6, pp. 273- 
274; Report of the Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 101-103. 

64. Report of the Secretary of War for 1856, p. 102. 

65. Statement of Henry Reisner, Topeka, July 22, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

66. Statements of Holmes, Parsons and Jason Brown. 

67. Letter of Aaron D. Stevens, signed "Charles Whipple, Col. 1st Regiment 
Kansas Volunteers," to his brother, Aug. 28, 1856; Headquarters 2d Regiment, 
Kansas Volunteers. — Original in possession of Dr. Henry B. Stevens, Boston. 

68. J. B. Donaldson, U. S. Marshal, to Gov. Geary, Lecompton, Sept. 25, 1856, 
Executive Correspondence, Kansas Historical Society. Facts about Col. Harvey's 
horse-thefts are scattered throughout vol. 3, Part i, of the Report on Kansas 
Claims. 

69. C. F. Oilman to Col. A. G. Boone, of Westport, Council Grove, Sept. 16, 
1856. Executive Correspondence, Kansas Historical Society. 

70. "Randolph" to the N. Y. Times, Lawrence, Sept. 10, 1856. 

71. These documents will be found in the Report of the Secretary of War for 
1856, and in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 522-527. 

72. For the Hickory Point fight, see report of Capt. T. J. Wood, ist U. S. 
Cavalry, to Lieut. -Col. P. St. G. Cooke, Sept. 16, 1856, in Report of the Secretary 
of War, pp. 123-126; Andreas, pp. 149 and 501-502; Speer's Lane, pp. 123-124; 
MS. Journal of Samuel J. Reader, of Topeka, Kansas; Gihon, p. 140 et seq.; Gov. 
Geary to Secretary Marcy, Lecompton, Sept. 16, 1856, Kansas Historical Society 
Collections, vol. 4, p. 535 et seq.; Holloway, pp. 401-402; Report on Kansas 
Claims, vol. 3, Part i, pp. 287-289. 

73. Lieut.-Col. Cooke to Major F. J. Porter, Lecompton, Sept. 13, 1856, in 
report of Secretary of War for 1856, pp. I13-114. 

74. Ibid., pp. 121-122, Lieut.-Col. Cooke to Major F. J. Porter, Sept. 16, 1856. 

75. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

76. Statement of Major James Burnett Abbott to F. G. Adams, Abbott Papers, 
Kansas Historical Society; Capt. Joseph Cracklin in Lawrence Daily Tribune, 
April 18, 1881; John Speer, Lawrence Journal, Jan. 22, 1880; Robinson, Kansas 
Conflict, pp. 324-328; Nathaniel Parker, in Hyatt Journal of Investigation, Dec. 



NOTES 621 

5, 1856; statement of Col. O. E. Leonard to K. Mayo, Lawrence, Kan., July 28, 
1908; H. Miles Moore, Topeka Capital, Oct. 10, 1897; Andreas, p. i50;Hinton, 
pp. 46-52; Sanborn, pp. 333-336; statement of George Leis, Lawrence, Nov. 29, 
1909, for the author; Hinton, in an otherwise inaccurate letter, dated Dec. 13, 1859, 
to the Boston Traveller, and reprinted in the Tribune of Dec. 8, 1859, affirmed that 
John Brown was asked on Sept. 13, 1856, "by all the prominent citizens, to take 
charge of the defence." 

77. Hinton, pp. 49-50. Hinton wrote to W. E. Connclley, June 9, 1900, that 
the account given of Brown's speech "is accurate. I took it down in shorthand. 
I am a stenographer. I was by his side. It was published in one of my letters 
to the Boston Traveller." 

78. Executive Minutes of Gov. Geary, Kansas Historical Society Collections, 
vol. 4, pp. 571 and 629-631; Robinson, p. 339; Andreas, pp. 151-153; HoUoway, 
pp. 408-409; Gihon, pp. 166-181; Report on Kansas Claims, vol. 3, Part 2, pp. 
1377-1380. 

79. Secretary of War's Report for 1856, pp. 142-143, Lieut. -Col. Cooke to 
Major F. J. Porter, Oct. 10, 1856. 

80. Ibid., p. 146. 

81. Charleston, S. C, Standard, letter signed "Ingomar," dated Lecompton, 
September 5, 1856, quoted in N. Y. Tribune of September 29. 

82. Letter of John Brown, Jr., July 30, 1856, to Jason Brown. — Original in 
possession of Mrs. Thompson. 

83. John Brown to his family. Tabor, Iowa, October 11, 1856. — Original in the 
possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. John Brown wrote to his brothers Frederick 
and Jeremiah, Tabor, Iowa, nth October, 1856: "I left Kansas both on business 
and to recover my health, being so unwell that I had to be brought here on a bed in 
a wagon. There is just now a kind of dead calm of the elements there. I expect 
to go back should the trouble continue and my health admit. Am getting better 
fast, and hope to see you soon." — Original in the possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark. 

84. MS. lecture entitled 'John Brown the Liberator,' by James H. Holmes, 
in possession of the author. 

85. Report of the Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 139-140. 

86. Another narrow escape of John Brown has been described for the author 
by Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse in these words: "One evening in, I think, early 
September, 1856, Captain Brown left my father, Mr. Wattles's house, then in 
Douglas County, going southward on a trip to Miami and Linn Counties. He 
learned on the road a little after midnight, that a company of dragoons was on 
the way to arrest him, so he returned to my father's just after daylight. Late 
in the afternoon Lieut, (now General) Eugene A. Carr, First Cavalry, arrived 
at the Wattles house and asked Brown's whereabouts. On learning of his depar- 
ture the night before, the soldiers sat down and were served with all the melons 
they would eat. As Brown lay on the floor of the attic, whither he had gone to 
sleep, he could look down between the roof boards and the top log of the wall, 
hearing every word, seeing every movement, with his two loaded Colt's revolvers 
in his hands. The soldiers rode away in disgust, certain, however, that their 
fellow-troopers in the south would catch Brown." 

87. From a copy in A. A. Lawrence's letter-book, in the possession of Mrs. 
Frederic Cunningham, Longwood, Mass. 

88. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

89. See Topeka Commonwealth for December 12, 1883, and February 16, 1884; 
the Hiawatha World for December 27, 1883; the Lawrence, Kansas, ilemW, Janu- 
ary 2, 1884. 



622 NOTES 

90. Dated Lecompton, March 12, 1857; see Kansas Historical Society Collec- 
tions, vol. 4, p. 739. 

91. Report of Commissioners of Kansas Territory, July, 1857, in Report of 
Committees, 36th Congress, 2d session, vol. 3, Part i, p. 92. 

92. See, for example, speech of Gerrit Smith at Buffalo, July 10, 1856, in Lib- 
erator, vol. 26, p. 125. 

93. For instance, the Weston, Platte Co., Mo., Reporter (pro-slavery), on April 
21, 1856, said: "Experience has shown that most of the emigrants from slave 
states have become free state men in Kansas." It was stated in a debate before 
the Georgia Legislature in 1856 that out of 89 men transported from Tennes- 
see to Kansas, 80 proved false and voted against the South. See Newark, Georgia, 
Mercury, March 3, 1856. See also Fleming's 'Buford Expedition,' American 
Historical Review, October, 1900, p. 48. 



CHAPTER VIII 
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 

1. For the story of Tabor, see Early Settlement and Growth of Western Iowa, 
by Rev. John Todd, Des Moines, 1906, which contains his reminiscences; also, 
John Brown Among the Quakers, by Irving B. Richman, Des Moines, 1894, pp. 
15-18. 

2. Todd's Early Settlement of Western Iowa, pp. 121-122. 

3. Both Mr. White's letter and that of Mr. Webster are in the Kansas Historical 
Society. 

4. Statement of Salmon Brown for the author. 

5. Watson Brown to his mother, brothers and sisters, St. Charles, Iowa, October 
30, 1856. — Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

6. F. B. Sanborn, Boston, January 5, 1857, to Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 
— Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. 

7. William Lloyd Garrison, by his Children, vol. 3, pp. 487-488. s 

8. Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, by John Weiss, New York, 1864, 
vol. 2, p. 161. 

9. Report of the Mason Investigating Committee of the United States Senate, 
36th Congress, ist session, p. 227, Washington, June, i860. 

10. Life and Public Service of George Luther Stearns, by Frank Preston Stearns, 
Philadelphia, 1907, pp. 133-134. 

11. Life of Amos A. Lawrence, by his son, William Lawrence, Boston, 1888, 
p. 124. 

12. Ibid., p. 125. 

13. A Yankee in Canada, by Henry D. Thoreau, Boston, 1866, pp. 156-157; 
also in Thoreau's Miscellanies, Boston, 1893, pp. 202-203. 

14. Life of George Luther Stearns, p. 132. 

15. Letter of George L. Stearns, Chairman of State Committee, January 8, 
1857. — Copy of original in possession of the Stearns family. 

16. George L. Stearns to John Brown, April 15, 1857, in Mason Report, p. 
229. 

17. Letter of G. L. Stearns to H. B. Kurd, Boston, September 30, 1856, in 
Sanborn, p. 368. 

18. Mason Report, pp. 247-248. 

19. Sanborn, p. 348. 



NOTES 623 

20. H. B. Hurd, Chicago, March 19, i860, to George L. Stearns. —Original in 
Stearns Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

21. Memorandum of H. B. Hurd for Captain John Brown. —Original in Kansas 
Historical Society. 

22. Mason Report, p. 249. 

23. Original in Kansas Historical Society. See Appendix. 

24. The correspondence between Horace White and John Brown is aH in the 
possession of the Kansas Historical Society. 

25. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

26. Statement of Annie Brown Adams; see also Hinton, p. 144. 

27. John Brown to Augustus Wattles, Boston, February 16, 1857 (from a copy 
in the Holmes Papers). 

28. This question and others were reported by Redpath. See pp. 182-184 of his 
Life of Brown. 

29. Letter of September 22, 1856, of Charles H. Branscomb, from Boston, to 
John Brown. — Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

30. John Brown to A. A. Lawrence, New Haven, March 19, 1857, — original 
in possession of Mrs. Frederic Cunningham, Longwood, Mass.; testimony of 
W. H. D. Callender, Mason Report, p. 114. 

31. John Brown to his wife and children, Springfield, March 12, 1857. — Ori- 
ginal in Kansas Historical Society. 

32. A.A.Lawrence to John Brown, Boston, February 19,1857; G. L. Stearns 
to John Brown, Boston, April 15, 1857. — Originals of both in Stearns Papers. 

33. John Brown to P. T. Jackson (letter and draft), Springfield, Mass., April 
21, 1857; H. Sterns to P. T. Jackson of same date. — Both originals in the P. T. 
Jackson Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. 

34. N. Y. Tribune, March 4, 1857. 

35. John Brown to A. A. Lawrence, March 19, 1857, — original in possession 
of Mrs. Frederic Cunningham; to his brother, Jeremiah Brown, Springfield, April 
I, 1857, — original in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark. 

36. A. A. Lawrence to John Brown, Boston, March 20, 1857; Lawrence letter- 
book, in possession of Mrs. Cunningham. 

37. G. L. Stearns Papers. 

38. John Brown to G. L. Stearns, Vergennes, Vt., May 13, 1857. — Original 
in Stearns Papers. 

39. Report of F. B. Sanborn to G. L. Stearns and others, August 25, 1857. 
— Original in Stearns Papers. 

40. Original in Kansas Historical Society; see the Worcester Daily Spy of 
March 24 and 25, 1857, for Brown's visit to Worcester. 

41. Francis Wayland to F. B. Sanborn, Sanborn, p. 381. 

42. A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by James Elliot Cabot, Boston, 1887, 
vol. 2, p. 596. 

43. Address delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, Saturday, November 18, 
1859, in Redpath's Echoes of Harper's Ferry, Boston, i860, pp. 67-71; Emerson's 
Miscellanies, Boston, 1904, p. 268. 

44. See letter of Eli Thayer, April 4, 1857. — Original in Kansas Historical So- 
ciety, where will be found further correspondence covering these points. See 
also letter of John Brown to Eli Thayer, Springfield, April 16, 1857. — Original in 
possession of W. K. Bixby, St. Louis, Mo. 

45. Sanborn, p. 387. 

46. John Brown to ex-Governor Reeder, Springfield, April i, 1857. — Original 
in possession of F. G. Logan, Chicago. 



624 NOTES 

47. John Brown to his wife, Springfield, March 31, 1857. — Original in posses- 
sion of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

48. See Blair's testimony for the story of the pikes, in Mason Report, pp. 121- 
129. The originals of Blair's letters to John Brown are to be found in the Kansas 
Historical Society. 

49. This account of Brown's relations with Forbes is drawn from Sanborn, 
Hinton, Redpath; the testimonies of Wilson, Seward, Howe and Realf before the 
Mason Committee; the reports of Joseph Bryant to John Brown, now in the Kan- 
sas Historical Society; the N. Y. Tribune; and from Forbes's own story in the 
N. Y. Herald of October 27, 1859; see also John Brown's letter, Cleveland, Ohio, 
June 22, 1857, to H. Forbes, demanding repayment of the $600, — original in 
Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

50. Gerrit Smith to Thaddeus Hyatt, Peterboro, July 25, 1857. — Original in 
Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

51. Jason Brown to John Brown, Akron, Ohio, April 3, 1857. — Original in 
possession of Miss Sarah Brown. 

52. John Brown to Eli Thayer, Springfield, Mass., April 16, 1857. — Original 
in possession of W. K. Bixby, St. Louis. See also letter to his brother, Jeremiah 
Brown, West Newton, Mass., April 15, 1857. — Original in possession of Mrs. S. 
L. Clark. 

53. Statement of Mrs. Thomas Russell, Jamaica Plain, Mass., January 11, 1908, 
to Miss K. Mayo. 

54. Original in possession of Stearns family. 

55. The complete correspondence relating to this matter is to be found in the 
Stearns Papers, in possession of the Stearns family, and in the Kansas Historical 
Society. 

56. John Brown to G. L. Stearns, Albany, April 28, 1857. — Original in 
Library of Congress. 

57. Sanborn, p. 406. 

58. John Brown to G. L. Stearns, Vergennes, Vt., May 13, 1857. — Original in 
possession of the Stearns family. 

59. Mason Report, p. 220. There was a real Nelson Hawkins, a brother-in-law 
of Mrs. Jason Brown. 

60. John Brown, Jr., to John Brown, Lindenville, Ohio, April 23, 1857. — 
Original in possession of Miss Thompson. 

61. G. L. Stearns to Mrs. Abby Hopper Gibbons, Boston, May 18, 1857. — 
Original in Stearns Papers. 

62. Testimony of G. L. Stearns, Mason Report, pp. 227-228. 

63. John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, Tabor, August 13, 1857, Sanborn, pp. 412- 
414. 

64. John Brown to His Wife and Children, Hudson, Ohio, May 27, 1857. — 
Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

65. Mason Report, p. 221. 

66. From a copy in the Stearns Papers. 

67. Ibid. 

68. See letter of Caleb Calkins, Peterboro, June 20, 1857, — original in posses- 
sion of Miss Brown; John Brown's Memorandum-Book, Boston Public Library. 

69. Letter of Leonard Bacon to Governor Wise, New Haven, November 14, 
1859. — Original in Dreer Collection. Mr. Bacon erroneously places the date of 
the celebration in July, 1857. It actually took place June 24, 1857. 

70. Tabor, July 6, 1857; from copy in the possession of the Stearns family. 

71. Brown to Sanborn, Tabor, August 13, 1857, Sanborn, pp. 412-414. 



NOTES 625 

72. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 239. 

73. This resume of Gov. Walker's service, and the following account of the po- 
litical events in Kansas during Brown's absence from the Territory, are drawn 
from Rhodes, Andreas, Holloway, Robinson's Kansas Conflict, Gihon, Wilder, 
the manuscript history of Louis A. Reese, and the publications of the Kansas 
Historical Society. 

74. The originals of these letters of August 8 and 10 to Mr. Stearns are in the 
possession of the Stearns family. 

75. These quotations from the Duty of the Soldier are taken from Augustus 
Wattles's copy, bearing John Brown's manuscript annotations, in the posses- 
sion of the author. 

76. Sanborn, p. 422; A. B. Hart, Life of Salmon Portland Chase, Boston, 1899, 
p. 174. 

77. Gerrit Smith to Thaddeus Hyatt, Peterboro, September 12, 1857. — 
Original in Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

78. Redpath, p. 197; Todd's Reminiscences, p. 156. 

79. Hugh Forbes to Charles Sumner, December 27, 1857. — Original in Sum- 
ner Correspondence in Harvard University Library. 

80. Todd's Reminiscences, pp. 154-155. 

81. Statement of Rev. H. D. King, Kinsman, Ohio, January 4-5, 1909, to 
K. Mayo. 

82. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

83. Letter of Rev. John Todd, May 25, 1892, cited in Richman's John Brown 
Among the Quakers, pp. 16-17; John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, August 13, 1857, 
Sanborn, p. 413. 

84. Original in possession of Miss Sarah Brown. 

85. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

86. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

87. From copy in possession of the Stearns family. 

88. James Redpath to Captain Brown, Falls City, Nebraska, September 20, 
1857, from a copy in the Stearns Papers. 

89. See Higginson's Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 204-205. Both he and Samuel 
F. Tappan were made brigadier-generals. 

90. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

91. John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, Tabor, October i, 1857, Sanborn, p. 401. 

92. From copy of original in Kansas Historical Society. 

93. This is the October i letter referred to above. 

94. From the same letter. 

95. Original in possession of Mrs. Remington, Osawatomie, Kansas. 

96. F. B. Sanborn to T. W. Higginson, Boston, September 11, 1857. — Original 
in T. W. Higginson Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

97. Compare with this opinion of Sanborn, Hinton's assertion, in his Ltfe, 
p. 136, that Brown was a "Unionist of Unionists, a Loyalist of Loyalists." 

98. E. B. Whitman to G. L. Stearns, Lawrence, October 25, 1857. — Original 
in Stearns Papers. 

99. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

100. E. B. W^hitman to G. L. Stearns, Lawrence, February 20, 1858. — Original 
in Stearns Papers. 

loi. W. A. Johnson, History of Anderson County, Kansas, Garnett (Kansas), 
1877, p. no; Holloway, p. 508. 

102. Original in Stearns Papers. 

103. Original in possession of Mrs. Remington, 



626 NOTES 

104. Stearns to E. B. Whitman. — Original in Colonel E. B. Whitman Papers, 
in possession of E. B. Whitman, Boston. 

105. Letter of R. G. Elliott to K. Mayo, Lawrence, August 6, 1908 ; also, Kansas 
Historical Society Collections, vol. 10, p. 187. 

106. See pamphlet entitled Confession oj John E. Cook, brother-in-law of Gov- 
ernor A. P. Willard, of Indiana, and one of the participants in the Harper's 
Ferry Invasion. Published for the benefit of Samuel C. Young, Charlestown, 1859. 



CHAPTER IX 
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 

1. Confession of John E. Cook, p. 6. 

2. Kagi was twenty-three. Cook twenty-eight, Realf twenty-three, Stevens 
twenty-seven. Parsons twenty-five, Leeman eighteen, Tidd twenty-three, Moflfet 
thirty, Owen Brown thirty-three, and Stewart Taylor twenty-two. 

3. Statement of L. F. Parsons, Salina, Kan., October 7, 1908, to the author. 

4. Ibid. 

5. Statement of George B. Gill to R. J. Hinton, Hinton Papers, Kansas His- 
torical Society. 

6. Those from which these and subsequent quotations are drawn are, first, 
extracts from December 21 to February 17, in the Richmond Daily Whigoi Octo- 
ber 29, 1859; second, from August 25 to December 8, quoted in the N. Y. Times; 
third, from March 13 to March 28, in the Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania His- 
torical Society. 

7. Richman, John Brown Among the Quakers, pp. 12-13. Annie Brown Adams 
declares the Townsend incident apocryphal. 

8. John Brown's Memorandum-Book No. 2, entries of December 30, 1857, and 
January 11, 1858, in Boston Public Library. 

9. Letter to Dr. Howe, May 14, 1858, published in the New York Herald of 
October 27, 1859. . 

10. Statement of Luke F. Parsons to Redpath and Hinton, Osawatomie, De- 
cember, 1859, in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

11. Richman, pp. 26-27. 

12. Ibid., pp. 28-29. 

' 13. Statement of L. F. Parsons to the author, October, 1908. 
I 14. Richman, p. 23. 

15. John Brown's Memorandum Book No. 2, entry for January 28, 1858. 

16. See letter of Owen Brown, of February 28, 1858, — copy in possession of 
Miss Thompson; also letter of Jason Brown, January 29, 1858, — original in 
possession of Miss Sarah Brown. 

17. Frederick Douglass, Life and Times, p. 353. 

18. Testimony of Senator Wilson before Mason Committee, Mason Report, 
p. 140 et seq. 

19. Testimony of William H. Seward, Mason Report, p. 253. 

20. Forbes to Dr. Howe, April 19, 1858, published in N. Y. Herald of October 

29, 1859. 

21. John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Sanborn, pp. 432-433; Memorandum- 
Book, entry of February 9. 

22. John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, Rochester, February 17, 1858. — Original 
in Higginson Collection. 



NOTES 627 

23. Original in possession of Miss Thompson. 

24. John Brown to T. W. Higginson, Rochester, February 2, 1858. — Original 
in the Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. 

25. Frothingham's Cerrit Smith, first edition, p. 237. 

26. John Brown to wife and children, Peterboro, February 24, 1858. — Original 
in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

27. See Sanborn's Lije, and especially in vol. i of his Recollections of Seventy 
Years, Boston, 1909, the chapter entitled 'Aftermath of the John Brown Foray,' 
where the relations of Mr. Smith to the enterprise are set forth in greater detail 
than ever before. See also first edition of O. B. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith; the 
later editions were altered by taking out unfavorable statements. 

28. Sanborn, Recollections, vol. i, p. 147. 

29. Sanborn, p. 444 (in facsimile). 

30. See Meynorandum-Book No. 2 for confirmatory evidence of Brown's move- 
ments during this period. 

31. Memorandum-Book No. 2; Sanborn, Life, p. 451; Hinton, p. 169. 

32. Sanborn, pp. 450-451; see also letter of John Brown, Jr., in reply to his 
father, Lindenville, Ashtabula, February 13, 1858. — Original in possession of 
Miss Brown. 

33. Henry Thompson, Salmon Brown, Annie Brown Adams and Miss Sarah 
Brown all share this feeling, and have so stated to the author. 

34. Letter of January 30, 1858, as above. 

35. Henry Thompson to John Brown, North Elba, April 21, 1858. — Original 
in possession of Miss Brown. 

36. John Weiss, Life of Parker, vol. 2, p. 164. 

37. Sanborn, p. 449. 

38. Sanborn, p. 443. 

39. Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. 

' 40. See telegram of George L. Stearns to T. W. Higginson, Boston, March 18, 
1858, and letter of F. B. Sanborn to the same, Boston, March 21, 1858, — both 
originals in T. W. Higginson Collection. 

41. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 219. 

42. James Freeman Clarke's Anti-Slavery Days, pp. 153-154. 
\ 43. Sanborn, p. 451. 

44. Memorandum-Book No. 2, and letter of John Brown to his son John, April 
8, 1858, Sanborn, p. 452. 

45. 'John Brown in Canada,' by James C. Hamilton, Canadian Magazine, De- 
cember, 1894; The Underground Railroad, by William H. Siebert, New York, 
1898, pp. 221-222. 

46. J. C. Hamilton, 'John Brown in Canada,' as above cited. 

47. Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany, by Frank A. Rollins, Boston, 
1868, pp. 85-90. 

48. Mrs. E. S. Butler, in the Midland Monthly, November, 1898. 

49. Owen Brown to his father, Springdale, February 28, 1858. — Copy in 
possession of Miss Thompson. 

50. Letter of Moses and Charlotte Varney, pp. 96-98 of Appendix to Message 
I, Documents relative to the Harper's Ferry Invasion, printed by the State of 
Virginia, 1859. 

51. The original of this letter is in the possession of Dr. Henry B. Stevens, of 
Boston. Leeman's letters are in the Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

52. Testimony of Richard Realf before Mason Committee, Mason Report, 
p. 95; narrative of George B. Gill, Hinton Papers. 



628 NOTES 

53. Richman, pp. 32-33. 

54. Ibid., p. 36. 

55. This narrative of the Chatham proceedings is based on the Journal of the 
two conventions published in the Appendix to Message I, by the State of Vir- 
ginia; on Realf's testimony before the Mason Committee; on Cook's Confession ; 
and on 'John Brown in Canada,' by J. C. Hamilton. 

The thirty-four colored men actually in attendance were, besides Munroe, 
Osborn P. Anderson, Richardson, Delany, and J. H. Harris, Stephen Ditten, 
James Smith, Charles Smith, Isaac Hobbar, Thomas Hickerson, John Connel, 
George Akin, Elias Chitman, Robert Newman, J. B. Shadd, Simon Fisher, John 
A. Thomas, Robert Van Vruken, Thomas W. Stringer, Thomas M. Kinnard, 
Thomas F. Cary, Robinson Alexander, James W. Purnell, J, C. Grant, J. G. 
Reynolds, A. J. Smith, James M. Jones, M. F. Bailey, W. Lambert, S. Hunton, 
Job J. Jackson, Alfred Whipper, James M. Bell and Alfred L. Ellsworth. 

56. Realf's testimony, Mason Report, pp. 96-98. 

57. As printed in the Appendix to Message I, Documents relative to the 
Harper's Ferry Invasion, Virginia State Papers. 

58. John Brown, by Dr. Hermann von Hoist, Boston, 1889, edited by Frank 
Preston Stearns, pp. 109-111. "To judge by the provisions of this extraordinary 
document [the Constitution], the conduct of a revolution never fell into hands 
more utterly unable to direct it. It would seem that Mr. Brown and his friends 
had no conception of any manner of carrying on public business. . . ." — London 
Times, November 4, 1859. 

59. Hinton, pp. 180-181. 

60. Sanborn, p. 456. 

61. Ibid. 

62. John Brown to his son Owen and others of his men, Chatham, May 18, 
1858. — Originally printed in Davenport, Iowa, Gazette, February 27, 1878. 

63. From the same to the same, May 21, 1858, in Davenport Gazette, Febru- 
ary 27, 1878. 

64. See letter of Richard Realf to John Brown, Cleveland, May 31, 1858, — 
original in Kansas Historical Society; also letter of L. F. Parsons to Leeman, 
Cleveland, May 16, 1858, — original in possession of Miss Brown. 

65. Richard Realf to John Brown, as above. 

66. Memorandum-Book No. 2; Realf testimony, Mason Report; telegram of 
Sanborn to Higginson, Boston, May 31, 1858, — original in Higginson Collection. 
It is stated by Sanborn, Hinton, Chadwick and others that Brown met Stearns 
in New York on or about May 20. This is erroneous, as the two letters from 
Chatham of May 18 and May 21 prove. He could not then leave Chatham, for 
lack of funds; and had he done so, he would have had no reason for returning, as 
his work in Canada was done. Had he made such a costly flying trip to New 
York, it must have appeared in his correspondence or his memorandum-book. 

67. Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. 

68. Ibid. 

69. Mason Report, p. 177. 

70. Copy in Stearns Papers. 

. 71. Original in Higginson Collection. 

72. Sanborn, p. 466. 

73. Ibid., p. 465. 

74. The Causes of the Civil War, Rear Admiral F. E. Chadwick, New York, 
1906, pp. 75-76. 

. 75. Sanborn, p. 350. 



NOTES 629 

76. For the movements of the arms, see letter of John Brown, Jr., to his father, 
Lindenville, Ohio, May i, 1858, — original in possession of Miss Brown; also 
statements of Mrs. E. A. Fobes and of Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Noxon, Wayne, Ohio, 
of Mrs. Fred Blakeslee, Ashtabula, Ohio, of Charles D. Ainger, Andover, Ohio, 
in January, 1909, all to K. Mayo; statements of Miss Rebecca Dean, Jefferson, 
Ohio, July 9, 1897, and of Mrs. Edwin King, Dunkirk, N. Y., June 22, 1897, to 
Mrs. E. L. Mark, of Cambridge, Mass., both in possession of the author; see 
also Sanborn, p. 494 

77. Sanborn, p. 471. 

78. Statement of Gill, Hinton, p. 733; Kagi to "Friend Addie" [L. F. Parsons], 
Moneka, Kansas, August 13, 1858, — original in Mr. Parsons's possession. 

79. For this dispersing of the men, see Gill's narrative, in Hinton, p. 734; 
statement of Luke F. Parsons to author; his letter of May 26, 1858, to George 
B. Gill, in Hinton Papers ; and various letters of the conspirators to each 
other. 

80. Owen Brown to John Brown, Akron, July 12, 1858. — Original in possession 
of Mrs. Brown. 

81. Statement to author, Salina, Kansas, October 7, 1908. 

82. Letter to Hinton, in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society, marked 
"1878 or 1879." 

83. Redpath's John Brown, pp. 199-200. Hinton and Redpath were in error 
in this statement, as will be seen later. The actual date of Brown's arrival was 
Saturday, June 26, 1858. The special correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune, writing 
from Lawrence, Kansas, June 27, 1858, said: "Our 'warrior of the Lord and of 
Gideon' — the renowned Old Brown — has just arrived in Lawrence. He leaves 
to-morrow morning to visit Capt. Montgomery." — N. Y. Tribune, July 8, 1858. 



CHAPTER X 
SHUBEL MORGAN, WARDEN OF THE MARCHES 

1. These figures are taken from Reese's MS. history. The Admission of Kan- 
sas, Mr. Reese having made a most accurate re-study of all the returns of the 
various elections. 

2. Cf. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 301. 

3. The author has been fortunate in having at his disposal, besides the accounts 
of the Hamilton Massacre in Andreas, pp. 1104-1105, and Tomlinson's Kansas 
in 1858 (chapter v), the narrative of Elias Snyder, son of the blacksmith, as told 
to the author at the scene of the massacre, which Mr. Snyder was the first to reach 
after the crime. Other narratives are those of Ed R. Smith, Kansas Historical 
Society Collections, vol. 6, pp. 365-370; of B. L. Read, Linn Co. Scrap-Book, 
Kansas Historical Society; and of the N. Y. Tribune of May 28, and June 2 and 7, 
1858. Not until October 30, 1863, was any one punished for this crime. Then 
William Griffith was hanged, with William Hairgrove, a survivor, as executioner. 

4. See Tomlinson, pp. 81-84. 

5. N. Y. Evening Post, June 4, 1858; letter signed G. W. N. 

6. Statement of Mrs. J. C. Burnett, Topeka, August 3, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

7. Statement of Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse, Mound City, Kansas, to the 
author, October 2, 1908. 

8. Andreas, p. 1104. 

9. See Andreas, p. 1107; for Montgomery's shocking vandalism in the Civil 



630 NOTES 

War, see The Story of a Brave Black Regiment (the 54th Massachusetts Infantry), 
by Luis F. Emilio, Boston, 1894, pp. 41-44- 

10. Capt. George T. Anderson, First U. S. Cavalry, resigned June 11, 1858, 
Official Army Register for 1859, p. 37. 

11. Andreas, pp. I102-1103. 

12. Governor Denver to Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, Lecompton, June 23, 
1858, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 531-535; also his letter of 
June 7, ibid., pp. 528-530. See also letter of Governor Denver to the N. Y. Tribune 
of October 15, 1858, describing Montgomery's and other Free State men's lawless 
acts, and reviewing the whole disorder. 

13. Printed in the N. Y. Tribune of April 23, 1858. 

14. Redpath, pp. 200-201. 

15. Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library, here printed for 
the first time. 

16. Sanborn, p. 473. 

17. Elias Snyder, statement to W. E. Connelley, October 18, 1907, and to the 
author, October 2, 1908, at the scene of the Hamilton Massacre, on the Snyder 
claim. 

18. Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. 

19. From the copy made by John Brown, Jr., now in possession of Miss 
Thompson. 

20. See letter of A. Wattles, dated Moneka, November 4, 1859, in Missouri 
Republican, November 26, 1859. Two of Brown's sons, Jason and John, Jr., 
opposed this plan, in letters of October 10, 1858, and August 24, 1858, whose 
originals are now respectively in the possession of Miss Brown and of Miss 
Thompson. John Brown, Jr., wrote : " But many a man has committed his greatest 
blunder when attempting to write a book." 

21. See letter of Kagi to his sister, Moneka, August 13, 1858: "Since I wrote 
you from Lawrence, I have been busily engaged in fortifying along the State 
line, to prevent further inroads from Missouri;" in the Hinton Papers, Kansas 
Historical Society; see also George B. Gill's MS. marked " i860 or '61," in the 
Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

22. Statement of Register J. G. Wood, of the U. S. Land Office, Topeka, July 
5, 1908; see also letter of George W. Martin, in the Topeka Capital of September 
17. 1905; interview of Ed R. Smith in the Mound City Republic, September 22, 
1905; letter of the same in the Topeka Capital, August 31, 1905; also George B. 
Gill's MS. referred to above, for Kagi's statement that negotiations of purchase 
were begun between Brown and Snyder. 

23. From an article by W. A. Mitchell, entitled ' Historic Linn,' in La Cygne, 
Kansas, Journal, June 7, 1895. 

24. See Sanborn, p. 366; also narrative of William Hutchinson, Kansas His- 
torical Society Collections, vol. 7, p. 397. 

25. Captain Eli Snyder to James H. Holmes, at Osawatomie, in 1894, original 
in possession of the author. 

26. James Hanway to R. J. Hinton, December 5, 1859, Hinton Papers, Kansas 
Historical Society. 

27. Statement of Charles S. Adair to James H. Holmes, May 11, 1904, original 
in possession of the author; also letter of the same to the author, January 27, 
1909. 

28. Original in possession of Mrs. G. A. Miller, Hudson, Ohio. 

29. Statement of Mrs. J. B. Remington to the author, at Osawatomie, October 
2, 1908. 



NOTES 631 

30. Kagi to his sister, Lawrence, September 23, 1858. — Original in Hinton 
Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

31. These two letters are in the possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

32. Mason Report, Conway testimony, pp. 204-208; see also Martin F. Con- 
way's letter to the editor of the Herald of Freedom, quoted in the White Cloud 
Kansas Chief, of December, 1859. 

33. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

34. Sanborn, p. 465. 

35. Mason Report, p. 206. 

36. Sanborn, p. 465; the original of the receipt for the goods is in the hands of 
E. B. Whitman, of Boston. 

37. This letter, also, is in the possession of Mr. Whitman the younger. 

38. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

39. Sanborn, p. 465. 

40. Mason Report, pp. 69-70. 

41. Mrs. George Plumb, widow of Senator Plumb, to William Allen White, 
November, 1909. Brown went to see Messrs. Stores and Eckbridge, of Em- 
poria. 

42. Kagi, in the N. Y. Tribune, November 11, 1858. This statement of Kagi's 
should be compared with the following mistaken editorial comment of the Tribune 
of October 21, 1859: "Even after the partisan war had been appeased in other 
parts of the Territory, it was kept up in Southern Kansas, and Brown had an 
actual part in it. He began on the principle of defence — he now acted on that 
of revenge." 

43. See letter of Kagi in Lawrence, Kansas, Republican, December 9, 1858; 
Gill MS., Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

44. Gill MS., cited above. 

45. Originals in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

46. Statements of Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse and of Mrs. Sarah Wattles Hiatt, 
to the author, at Mound City, Kansas, October 2, 1908. 

47. Mr. Gill's statement of November 12, 1908, at Attica, Kansas, to K. Mayo. 

48. Theodosius Botkin, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 7, p. 440; 
Gill MS., Kansas Historical Society. 

49. See Executive Minutes for 1858, Kansas Historical Society Collections, 
vol. 5, p. 547- 

50. Governor S. Medary to President James Buchanan, January 31, 1859, 
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 602. 

51. A. J. Weaver to acting Governor Walsh, Paris, November 26, 1858, Kansas 
Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 551. 

52. Lawrence Republican, December 23, 1858. 

53. Sheriff C. M. M'Daniel to acting Governor Walsh, Paris, December 3, 
1858, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 551-552. 

54. J. W. Weaver to acting Governor Walsh, November 15, 1858, Kansas 
Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 548. 

55. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

56. See N. Y. Tribune, December 29, 1858, for letter from Moneka, Kansas, of 
December 8; also Kagi's account in the Lawrence Republican of December 23, 
1858. 

57. Another treaty, drafted by John Brown, and in his handwriting, which does 
not seem to have been published heretofore, is in the possession of the Wattles 
family, also bearing date of January I, 1859, and carrying the signature of several 
persons. It reads thus: 



632 NOTES 

The undersigned have this day entered into the following pledge or agreement 
(viz) That hereafter we will not either as a company, or companies; or as indi- 
viduals; be concerned or in any way connected with the robbing plundering or in 
any other way molesting of any person, or persons; whose case shall not have been 
thoroughly examined & decided upon (by a regularly chosen committee of discreet 
members) as one requireing attention; or punishment. And we further agree to 
hold as enemies of the community & of this organization all & every unprincipled 
person; or persons who shall for the sake of plunder disturb any inhabitant of the 
territory of the adjoining State; & to deal with them accordingly. And we hereby 
further agree to make an equal distribution of all property captured by any com- 
pany of the members to the company making such capture & to insist upon the 
observance of this rule by all the members. 
Kansas ist Jany i8sg. 

58. Andreas, p. 1070; Hinton, p. 218; Holloway, pp. 542-543; Report of Sam- 
uel Walker, Deputy U. S. Marshal, to Governor Medary, Kanwaka, January 3, 
1859, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 577-578; see also other cor- 
respondence in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 561 et seq.; N. Y. 
Tribune, January 8, 1859. 

59. T. F. Robley, History of Bourbon County, Fort Scott, 1894, p. 128 et seq.; 
C. W. Goodman, Memoirs and Recollections of the Early Days of Fort Scott, Fort 
Scott, 1899, p. 79; James Hanway, in Lawrence Daily Tribune, May 30, 1881; 
Andreas, p. 1070. 

60. Andreas, p. 1070. 

61. It was at this period that Brown was first intimately thrown with two of 
his future followers, Albert Hazlett and Jeremiah Anderson. On the day of the 
Fort Scott raid he was at Wimsett farm, the rendezvous; near by lived Anderson's 
brother, with whom Brown then spent a few days. — G. B. Gill, Milan, Kansas, 
May ID, 1893, to R. J. Hinton, Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

62. Governor Medary to President James Buchanan, Lecompton, December 
28, 1858, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 565-566; ibid., pp. 580- 
581 et seq. 

63. Narrative of George B. Gill, Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

64. 'John Brown's Raids,' by Burr Joyce, in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat for 
April 15, 1888. 

65. Ibid.; see also St. Louis Missouri Democrat of December 30, 1858, for pro- 
slavery account of losses. This is indubitably an exaggeration. 

66. Statement of Mrs. Annie Brown Adams to K. Mayo, Petrolia, Cal., 
October 2, 1908. 

67. Article of Burr Joyce as aforesaid. 

68. George B. Gill to R. J. Hinton, Milan, Kansas, May 10, 1893, Hinton 
Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

69. Harrisonville, Mo., Democrat, quoted in Kansas Herald, Leavenworth City, 
January 8, 1859. 

70. Wyandotte Western Argus, January 15, 1859. 

71. Lawrence Republican, January 6, 1859; Kansas Herald, Leavenworth, 
January 29, 1859; George A. Crawford to James Buchanan, President, Kansas 
Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 579-580. The Heraldof Freedom, of course, 
did not lose the opportunity to assail Brown. It declared on January 22, 1859, 
after condemning Brown and Montgomery: "If the people of Missouri should 
raise an army and march over into Linn county and wipe the perpetrators of those 
wrongs from existence, all of us would join in denouncing the outrage, and yet 
such transactions as those Brown rejoices over are inaugurating a state of things 



NOTES 633 

which can only be seen through a river of blood. . . . Brown should be arrested 
and set to work on the public improvements at Jefferson City, Mo., until he is re- 
stored to reason, and unless we mistake such will be the case, unless he hangs for 
murder. ..." Again, a few days later, February 2, 1859, it said: '"Old Brown' 
and a portion of his piratical band have escaped into Nebraska, no doubt on their 
way East. On their arrival they will make a demand upon the charitable for 
contributions to pay for their expenses while engaged in robbing the people of 
Kansas. We do wish Gerrit Smith could know Brown as he is. If so, instead of 
lending him further pecuniary assistance, he would exert all his energies to send 
him to an Insane Asylum." 

72. Herald of Freedom, January 15, 1859. 

73. Osawatomie letter of December 27, 1859, in the Missouri Democrat for 
January 5, 1859. 

74. Governor Medary to the Kansas Legislature, House Journal, 1859, p. 44. 

75. Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse, in the N. Y. Tribune, reprinted in the Linn 
County Republic, Mound City, Kansas, May 28, 1897. 

76. Rev. S. L. Adair to James Hanway, Osawatomie, Kansas, February 2, 1878, 
Hanway Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

77. MS. of William H. Ambrose, entitled 'The Concealment of the Twelve 
on the Pottawatomie;' see also letter, with map, of James Hanway, to F. G. 
Adams, Lane, Kansas, February, 1878, both in Kansas Historical Society. 

78. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 7, pp. 398-399. 

79. John Brown to James Montgomery, Turkey Creek, January 2, 1859, 
Montgomery Papers, Kansas Historical Society; here utilized for the first time. 

80. Letter signed "Marcus," Moneka, Kansas, January 22, 1859, in Lawrence 
Republican, February 3, 1859; see also letter from Moneka, January 24, 1859, in 
the same issue. 

81. Original in George W. Brown Papers, Kansas Historical Society. In his 
letter of March, 1859, to John Teesdale, Brown positively denied that he had 
been asked to leave Kansas. This letter was printed in the New York Evening 
Sun of March 16, 1895. 

82. Mason Report, p. 223. 

83. See article of Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse. 

84. From an original draft, in Brown's handwriting, in the Kansas Historical 
Society. 

85. The "atrocity" of Brown's raid, painted in the richest colors, was described 
to Buchanan by Lieut. J. P. Jones, of the Second United States Artillery, who 
had frequently traversed southern Kansas for Governor Denver, whose aide he 
had been. Lieutenant Jones, who was new to the army, could always see the 
Free State mote and never the Pro-Slavery beam; Hamilton's massacre, according 
to him, took place in a fair and honorable combat! See Lieut. J. P. Jones and 
B. J. Newsom to Governor Denver, Lecompton, June 3, 1858, Kansas Historical 
Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 526-538; Lieut. J. P. Jones to President James 
Buchanan, Washington, D. C, January 9, 1859, Kansas Historical Society Col- 
lections, vol. 5, pp. 585-587- 

86. Governor Medary to the Kansas Legislature, January 11, 1859, House 
Journal, 1859, p. 44 et seq. 

87. Kansas House Journal, 1859, p. 57 et seq., and p. 64. 

88. Reprinted in the N. Y. Tribune of January 29, 1859. 

89. N. Y. Tribune, January 29, 1859, Lawrence correspondence. 

90. Governor Medary to President Buchanan, Lawrence, February 2, 1859, 
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 602. Montgomery was at the time 



634 NOTES 

in extreme poverty, and the rank and pay of a colonel of volunteers were very 
welcome when he was entrusted, thirty months later, with the raising of the Third 
Kansas Infantry, to aid in the defence of the Union. 

91. N. Y. Tribune, January 28, 1859. 

92. See letter of Gerrit Smith to Sanborn, Peterboro, January 22, 1859, San- 
born, p. 483. 

93. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 603-604 ; Herald of Freedom, 
February 19, 1859. 

94. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

95. Statement of George B. Gill to Hinton. 

96. Samuel F. Tappan, Washington, D. C., December 19, 1907, to the author. 
To Brown's disappointment, he received here a letter from Martin F. Conway, 
advising him that he need not expect further aid from E. B. Whitman. 

97. Narrative of John Day, [by Himself], Boston,,i86o, pp. 23-27, 123 and 130- 
132. 

98. Gill says that he left Grover's, "riding a fine stallion which Brown had 
given Hazlett a forty-acre land warrant for. The land warrant Gerrit Smith had 
sent Brown, and the stallion Hazlett had picked up down in Missouri. Brown 
afterward sold it at auction in Cleveland." 

99. MS. statement of Olive Owen, Topeka, 1904, in Kansas Historical Society. 

100. There is some confusion of dates at this point, but those here given seem 
accurate. They, like the following narrative of the ' Battle of the Spurs,' have 
been deduced from the story of William F. Creitz, of Holton, Kansas, to James 
Redpath, December 17, 1859, Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; 'The 
Battle of the Spurs,' by L. L. Kiene, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, 
pp. 443-449; letter of G. M. Seaman, same volume, pp. 448-449; statement by 
William Graham, of Sabetha, Kansas, to W. E. Connelley, January, 1901 ; articles 
in N. Y. Tribune, February 12, 1859; Lawrence Republican, February 10, 1859; 
Atchison Freedom's Champion, February 12, 1859; letter of John H. Kagi to Wil- 
liam A. Phillips, Tabor, Iowa, February 7, 1859; letter of William Hutchinson 
to the N. Y. Times, February 4, 1859; see also quotations in the Cleveland Plain 
Dealer of March 2, 1859, from the Nebraska City News and the Daily St. Joseph 
Gazette; and the Missouri Democrat of February 5 and 8, 1859. 

loi. Governor S. Medary to James Buchanan, President, January 31 and 
February 2, 1859, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 602. 

102. Ibid., p. 601. 

103. L. L. Kiene, in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 447. 

104. St. Louis Missouri Democrat, February 8, 1859. 

105. Quoted in the Lawrence Republican, February 10, 1859. 

106. B. F. Gue, History of Iowa, New York, 1903, vol. i, p. 381; Gill's narra- 
tive in Hinton, p. 225. 

107. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

108. Statement of Rev. H. D. King, Kinsman, Ohio, January 4 and 5, 1909, to 
K. Mayo. 

109. 'John Brown's Last Visit to Tabor,' by Prof. J. E. Todd, Annals of Iowa, 
Third Series, vol. 3, p. 458 et seq., April to July, 1898. 

no. George Gill MS. of "i860 or '61," Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical 
Society. 

111. From the copy in the possession of Miss Mary Thompson. 

112. Statement of Rev. H. D. King; and Reminiscences of Rev. John Todd, 
pp. 159-161. 

113. To show how little this taking of the horses affected strong anti-slavery 



NOTES . 635 

men in the East, it is worth recording that John A. Andrew, on February 9, i860, 
made the following statement before the Mason Committee: " I had heard it fre- 
quently said that sometimes during the controversy between free-State men and 
the pro-slavery men, they were accustomed, when they prevailed against each 
other, to treat their horses as fairly the spoils of war. I am quite confident that I 
had heard this statement made in connection with Captain Brown, but I did not 
regard him singular in that respect, and I always believed and do now believe 
that the free-State men were acting defensively in substantially all that was done 
by them in Kansas." — Mason Report, p. 192. 

114. This itinerary is given by Gill in Hinton, pp. 226-227. 

115. This letter was republished without exact date in N. Y. Evening Sun of 
March 16, 1895. 

116. At another time Brown justified the Missouri raid by asserting that the 
Denver truce had been broken ; that it was in accordance with his settled pol- 
icy; that it was intended as a "descriminating blow" at slavery; that "it was 
calculated to lessen the value of slaves; " and finally that "it was (over and above 
all other motives) right." See Startling Incidents and Developments of Osawatomy 
Brown's Insurrectory and Treasonable Movements at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, by 
A Citizen of Harper's Ferry, Baltimore, 1859. 

117. Men and Events of Forty Years, by Josiah Busnell Grinnell, Boston, 1891, 
p. 210 et seq. 

118. From the original, in possession of the Kansas Historical Society. 

1 19. This narrative of the attempt to capture Brown is taken from the History 
of Johnson County, Iowa City, Iowa, 1883, pp. 471-474. 

120. This letter is reprinted in Bulletin for May, 1900, of Boston Public 
Library. 

121. Gill MS. of "i860 or '61." 

122. L. R. Witherell, in Davenport, Iowa, Gazette of March 13, 1878; Mrs. E. S. 
Butler, 'A Woman's Recollections of John Brown's Stay in Springdale,' Midland 
Monthly, November, 1898, p. 576; Narcissa Macy Smith, 'Reminiscences of John 
Brown,' Midland Monthly, September, 1895, pp. 231-236. 

123. E. H. Gregg to J. H. Holmes, Kansas City, Mo., December 22, 1895. Mr. 
Gregg was an employee of Keith's Mill. 

124. Iowa City Republican, Leaflet No. 11, November 17, 1880. 

125. Grinnell, p. 216. 

126. Major Allan Pinkerton's paper read at meeting in honor of Mrs. John 
Brown ; and paper by John Jones read at the same time, both in Chicago Times, Sep- 
tember I, 1882; also H. O. Waggoner, in Spokane, Wash., Review of September 2, 
1892; also Kagi toTidd, Detroit, March 13, 1859, in Document No i. Appendix 
to [Gov. Wise's] Message i, to Virginia Legislature, December, 1859 (referred to 
hereinafter as Document No. i); Hinton, pp. 227-228. 

127. N. Y. Tribune, March 17, 1859; letter of Kagi to Tidd, Detroit, March 13, 
1859, Document No. I, p. 113. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 

I. Mrs. Amanda M. Sturtevant to James Redpath, Cleveland, April 17, i860, 
Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; Mrs. Sturtevant, in Cleveland Weekly 
Plain Dealer, November 9, 1859; J. W, Schuckers, in Cleveland Leader for April 



636 NOTES 

29, 1894; Kagi to Tidd, Detroit, March 13, 1859; Document No. i, pp. 113- 
114. 

2. Cleveland Leader of March 21, 1859. 

3. Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer, March 22, 1859, and Weekly Plain Dealer, 
March 30, 1859. 

4. J. W. Schuckers, as above. 

5. Hinton, p. 233. 

6. J. W. Schuckers; Annie Brown Adams to the author. 

7. J. W. Schuckers. 

8. John Brown to wife and children, Ashtabula, Ohio, March 25, 1859.— 
Original in possession of Miss Brown. 

9. See N. Y. Tribune, October 31, 1859, and Ashtabula Sentinel, November 15, 
1859, giving the speech of J. R. Giddings in Philadelphia on Friday, October 28, 
1859; also statement of Mrs. Mary Curtis Giddings, Jefferson, Ohio, January 2, 
1909, to K. Mayo. 

10. Letter of Mrs. Amanda M. Sturtevant to Redpath; statement of Mrs.'J. H. 
Scott, Oberlin, Ohio, December 9, 1908, to K. Mayo; J. H. Kagi, Cleveland, Ohio, 
April 4, 1859, to Thaddeus Hyatt, — original in possession of Dr. Thaddeus 
Hyatt, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Kagi to H. Thompson, Cleveland, April 21, 1859,— 
original in possession of Miss Thompson. 

11. John Brown to wife and children, Kingsville, Ohio, April 7, 1 859. — Original 
in Byron Reed Collection, in Omaha Public Library. 

12. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith, first edition, p. 237. 

13. John Brown to Kagi, Westport, April 16, 1859, Document No. i, p. 135; 
Owen Brown to John Brown, Akron, May 2, 1859, — original in possession of 
Mrs. John Brown, Jr. 

14. John Brown to John Henrie (Kagi), North Elba, April 25, 1859. — Original 
in Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

15. John Brown's Memorandum- Book No. 2, Boston Public Library. 

16. Sanborn, p. 467. 

17. This correspondence between Sanborn and Higginson is in the Higginson 
Collection, Boston Public Library. 

18. Higginson to John Brown, Brattleboro, Vt., May i, 1859, Higginson Col- 
lection, Boston Public Library. 

19. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 222-223. 

20. Sanborn, p. 523. 

■ 21. Document No. i, p. 134. 

22. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. 

23. Brown to wife and children, Boston, May 13, 1859. — Original in Byron 
Reed Collection, Omaha Public Library. 

24. Memorandum-Book No. 2. 

25. A. Bronson Alcott, MS. statement in Mrs. G. L. Stearns's Emancipation 
Evening Album, in possession of Stearns's family. 

26. John Murray Forbes, Letters and Recollections, edited by his daughter, 
Sarah Forbes Hughes, Boston, 1899, vol. I, pp. 179-182. 

27. Mason Report, p. 144. 

28. Life of A. A. Lawrence, p. 130. 

29. Mason Report, p. 192. 

30. Ibid., testimony of Henry Wilson, pp. 144-145. 

31. Ibid., pp. 124-127, testimony of Charles Blair. 

32. Original in Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

33. Sanborn, p. 523. 



NOTES 637 

34. This portion of the diary will be found in the N. Y. Herald, October 25, 1859; 
see also letter of Oliver Brown to his wife, West Andover, Ohio, June 18, 1859,— 
original in possession of Miss Brown. 

35. John Brown to wife and children, Akron, June 25, 1859. —Original in pos- 
session of Miss Thompson. (Much altered in Sanborn's Life, p. 526.) 

36. Statement of Miss Fannie Uean, Jefferson, Ohio, January 2, 1909, to 
K. Mayo, and of John Brown, Jr., in Cleveland Press, May 3, 1895. Statements 
of Alfred Hawkes, Jefferson, Ohio, January 2, 1909, Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Noxon, 
Wayne, Ohio, January 3,1909, and Charles Garlick, Jefferson, January 2, 1909, 
all to K. Mayo; also E. C. Lampson, 'The Black String Band,' Cleveland Plain 
Dealer, October 8, 1899. 

37. Original in Dreer Collection. 

38. Oliver Brown to his wife, Bedford Springs, Pa., June 26, 1859, — original in 
possession of Miss Brown; I. Smith (John Brown) to John Henrie (Kagi), Bedford, 
Pa., June 27, 1859, — original in Dreer Collection. 

39. Original in Dreer Collection. 

40. Sanborn, p. 527. 

41. Mason Report, p. 5. 

42. See the Unseld testimony. Mason Report, pp. 1-6, for details of the move 
to Kennedy Farm. 

43. Statement of Patrick Higgins to the author, Sandy Hook, Maryland, April, 
1908; Unseld, Mason Report, pp. 1-6. 

44. Annie Brown Adams to Hinton, Petrolia, Cal., February 15, 1893. — Ori- 
ginal in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

45. Original in possession of Miss Brown; also Brown's diary, N. Y. Herald, 
October 25, 1859. 

46. Letter of Mary A. "Smith" to "Isaac Smith," North Elba, June 29, 1859. 
— Original in Dreer Collection. 

47. Mason Report, p. 4; Isaac Smith (John Brown) to his family. Chambers- 
burg, July 22, 1859, — original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger; nar- 
rative of Annie Brown Adams, in possession of the author. 

48. F. B. Sanborn, Memoirs of John Brown, Concord, 1878, p. 73. 

49. Original in Dreer Collection. 

50. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author; see also Hinton's John 
Brown, p. 246. 

51. I. Smith and Sons (John Brown) to John Henrie, Harper's Ferry, Va., July 
12, 1859. — Original in Dreer Collection. 

52. Letter of C. W. Moffet, Document No. i, pp. iio-iii. 

53. John Brown, Jr., to his father, Lindenville, Ohio, May I, 1858. — Original 
in possession of Miss Brown. 

54. Original in Dreer Collection. 

55. John Smith (John Brown, Jr.) to J. Henrie (Kagi), West Andover, July 27, 
1859, Document No. i, pp. 136-137; the same to the same, August 7, 1859.— 
Original in Dreer Collection. 

56. J. Henrie to Messrs. I. Smith and Sons, Chambersburg, August 11, 1859. — 
Original in Dreer Collection. 

57. John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Chambersburg, August, 1859, printed in 
N. Y. Herald, October 25, 1859. 

58. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author. 

59. Annie Brown Adams to Hinton, Petrolia, February 15, 1893, as above. 

60. Virginia Free Press, Charlestown, W. Va., April 5, i860; statement of 



638 NOTES 

Mrs. Virginia Kennedy Cook Johnston, Chicago, November 23, 1908, and of 
Mr. Cleon Moore, Charlestown, April, 1909, to K. Mayo. 

61. William H. Leeman, Harper's Ferry, October 2, 1859, to his mother. — 
Original in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

62. Original in Dreer Collection. 

63. Letter of August 6, 1859. — Original in Dreer Collection. 

64. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. 

65. Mason Report, testimony of Secretary John B. Floyd, pp. 250-252. 

66. Statement of David J. Gue, New York, November, 1907, to K. Mayo; 
see also History of Iowa, by Benjamin F. Gue, vol. 2, pp. 26-30. 

67. Sanborn to Higginson, August 24, September 4 and 14,1859. — Originals 
in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. 

68. Document No. I, p. 145. 

69. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, pp. 354-358- For Douglass's con- 
temporaneous statement, see his letter from Canada West, October 31, 1859, 
to the editor of the Rochester Democrat and American, reprinted in the Liberator 
of November 11, 1859. 

70. Document No. I, p. 140. 

71. Oliver Brown to John Brown, North Elba, April 21, 1858.— Original in 
possession of Miss Brown; statement of Annie Brown Adams, Petrolia, Cal., 
October 2 and 3, 1908, to K. Mayo, 

72. Document No. i, pp. 137-138; see also letter of the same to the same, 
West Andover, September 27, 1859, in N. Y. Herald, October 25, 1859, 

73. John Brown to John Henrie (Kagi), Washington County, Maryland, August 
II, 1859. — Original in Dreer Collection. 

74. From the narrative of Owen Brown, written at his dictation by Mrs. Ruth 
Brown Thompson, — in possession of Miss Thompson. 

75. A Voice from Harper's Ferry, by Osborn P. Anderson, Boston, 1861. 
p. 23. 

76. Harriet Newby's pathetic letters to her husband are in Document No. 
I, pp. 116-117. 

77. Letters of Watson Brown to Isabel, his wife, Chambersburg, September 8 
and October 14, "Home," September 28, and a fourth, undated, — from copies 
in possession of Miss Brown. 

78. Isabel Brown to Watson Brown, North Elba, September 14, 1859. — Origi- 
nal in Dreer Collection. 

79. Original in Dreer Collection. 

80. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author. 

81. Quoted by Annie Brown Adams to the author. 

82. John Brown to wife and children.Chambersburg, October i, 1859, Sanborn, 

p. 550. 

83. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to author. 

84. 'John Brown and His Friends,' by F. B. Sanborn, Atlantic Monthly, July, 
1872. 

85. Quoted by F. B. Sanborn in 'The Virginia Campaign of John Brown,' 
Atlantic Monthly, December, 1875. 

86. Letter of Francis J. Meriam to Wendell Phillips Garrison, Rutland, Vt., 
September 22, 1858. — Original in possession of the author. 

87. Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times, by A. K. McClure, Philadelphia, 
1892, p. 309. 

88. Confession of John E. Cook. 

89. Original in possession of Miss Brown. 



NOTES, 639 

90. From the copy by John Brown, Jr., in the Higginson Collection, Boston 
Public Library. 

91. Ibid. 

92. Statement of Salmon Brown, at Portland, Oregon, October 12, 1908, to 
K. Mayo. 

CHAPTER XII 
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 

1. For an account of the last day at Kennedy Farm and the march to Harper's 
Ferry, see O. P. Anderson, A Voice from Harper's Ferry' pp. 28-32; the story of 
the parting of the Coppocs is from Mrs. Annie Brown Adams's recollections of 
O. P. Anderson's verbal account; see also, on this point, John Brown's Men, by 
Thomas Featherstonhaugh, Harrisburg, 1899, p. 12. 

2. N. Y. Herald, November i, 1859; Doc. No. xxxi, Report of the" Joint Com- 
mittee of the General Assembly of Virginia on the Harper's Ferry Outrages, Jan- 
uary 26, i860, p. 4. 

3. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, London, 1787, pp. 27-28. 

4. New York Tribune, November 24, 1856. 

5. Josephus, Jr., Annals of Harper's Ferry, Hagerstown, Md., 1869, pp. 17-18; 
New York Herald, October 19, 1859; Life, Trial and Conviction of Captain John 
Brown, New York, 1859, p. 76. 

6. N. Y. Tribune, November 24, 1856. 

7. Testimony of Daniel Whelan, Mason Report, p. 22, 

8. O. P. Anderson, A Voice, pp. 26 and 33. 

9. For Col. Washington's narrative of his capture, see Mason Report, pp. 29- 
40, and Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, pp. 39-40, 71 and 72; 
see also O. P. Anderson, pp. 33-35. 

ID. O. t'. Anderson, p. 35. * 

11. Statement of John Thomas Allstadt, Kearneysville, W. Va., April 15, 
1909, to K. Mayo. 

12. Mason Report, p. 34. 

13. Statement of Patrick Higgins, Sandy Hook, Md., January, 1908, to the au- 
thor; Annals of Harper's Ferry, p. 18; statement of W. W. Throckmorton, N. Y. 
Herald, October 24, 1859; testimony of Conductor Phelps, Life, Trial and Con- 
viction of Captain John Brown, p. 69. (The Life, Trial and Conviction of Captain 
John Brown differs but slightly from the Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John 
Brown. Both were pamphlets of 108 pages, published by Robert W. DeWitt, New 
York, 1859.) 

14. For the story of the stopping of the train and of the shooting of Hayward. 
see Phelps's testimony; see also statements of C. W. Armstrong, a passenger, 
N. Y. Herald, October 19, and of W. W. Throckmorton, N. Y. Herald, October 24; 
also testimony of Dr. J. D. Starry, Mason Report, pp. 23-24; for Hayward's char- 
acter, see Starry's testimony; also that of Col. Washington, Mason Report, p. 39. 
Hayward's body was escorted to the grave by the Morgan Continentals, under 
Major R. B. Washington, with two other militia companies. A militia band led 
the procession, in which were the mayor and many officers and white citizens, who 
listened reverently to the reading of the burial service by an old negro preacher. 

15.- Confession of John E. Cook, p. Ii/ 

16. Phelps testimony. Life, Trial and Conviction of Captain John Brown, p. 69. 

17. For the despatch and its sequels, see Document Y, Correspondence Relating 



640 NOTES 

to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, Annapolis, i860, p. i et seq. (published by 
the Maryland Legislature), hereinafter referred to as Document Y. 

18. Dr. Starry's testimony in full is given in the Mason Report. 

19. Report of Col. John Thomas Gibson, commanding the 55th Regiment 
Virginia Militia, Harper's Ferry, October 18, 1859, to Governor Wise, Document 
No. I, Virginia State Papers, pp. 61-62; speech of Governor Wise in Richmond, 
October 21, N. Y. Herald, October 26, 1859; also statement of Mr. Cleoa 
Moore to the author, January, 1908. 

20. Report of Col. Gibson; article entitled 'The Jefferson Guards,' Virginia 
Free Press, October 27, 1859. 

21. Statement of W. W. Throckmorton, clerk of the Wager House, N. Y. 
Herald, October 24, 1859; testimony of Col. Washington, Mason Report, p. 40; 
statements of J. T. Allstadt, Kearneysville, April 15, 1909, and of Miss Annie 
Miller, Charlestown, March 20, 1908, both to K. Mayo. 

22. Testimony of Terence Byrne, Mason Report, pp. 13-21; Confession oj 
John E. Cook. 

23. See testimony of Armistead Ball, Life, Trial and Conviction of Captain John 
Brown, p. 73; testimony of Joseph A. Brewer [Brua], ibid., p. 75; testimony of 
Reason Cross, ibid., p. 76; testimony of John P. Da[i]ngerfield, ibid., p. 79. 

24. Charlestown Virginia Free Press, October 27 and November 3, 1859; 
testimony of Benjamin T. Bell, Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, 

p. 74- 

25. Col. Gibson's Report; Col. Baylor's Report, Document No. i, pp. 63-64; 
'The Jefferson Guards,' Virginia Free Press, October 27, 1859. 

26. Statement of Col. Richard B. Washington, Charlestown, March 26, 1908, 
to K. Mayo; Annals of Harper's Ferry, p. 34; statement of Patrick Higgins to the 
author. The shooting of Newby has been ascribed to other hands, though all 
narratives agree as to the place whence the shot came. 

27. Statement of Patrick Higgins to the author, January, 1908; this incident 
was reported in the Frederick, Md., Herald, cited in the Liberator, November il, 
1859; see also Richmond Despatch, October 25, 1859. 

28. Cross's testimony. Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, p. 76. 

29. For the mission and the wounding of Stevens and of Watson Brown, see 
testimony of A. M. Kitzmiller, Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, 
p. 75; testimony of James Beller, ibid., p. 75; of John P. Daingerfield, ibid., p. 79; 
and of Major Mills, ibid., p. 80; also letter of George Sennott, Stevens's counsel, 
in the N. Y. Tribune, November 29, 1859. 

30. Testimony of Joseph A. Brewer [Brua], Life, Trial and Execution of Cap- 
tain John Brow7i, p. 75. 

31. Schoppert's affidavit is in the possession of Mr. Braxton Davenport Gibson, 
of Charlestown, who vouches for his father's. Colonel Gibson's, endorsement of 
Schoppert's statement; for the riddling of Leeman's body, see Baltimore Sun, 
October 19, 1859; also statement of Mr. E. B. Chambers, Harper's Ferry, March 
24, 1908, to K. Mayo; also statement of eye-witness in the Frederick, Md., Herald, 
quoted in the Liberator of Nov. 11, 1859; for Leeman's attempt to escape, and his 
movements precedent thereto, see Annals of Harper's Ferry, by Joseph Barry (a 
later edition), Martinsburg, W. Va., 1872. 

32. Statement of John Brown, Charlestown Independent Democrat, November 
22, 1859; letter of 'An Observer,' Shepherdstown, Va., Register, October 29, 
1859; statement of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Burton, Charlestown, April 14, 1909, to 
K. Mayo. 

33. George W. Turner was graduated from West Point, July i, 1831, becoming 



NOTES 641 

a second lieutenant in the ist Artillery. He resigned June 30, 1836, and became a 
farmer in Rippon, Jefferson County. His sister lost her reason on hearing of her 
brother's death, and died soon after of shock and grief. 

34. J. G. Rosengarten, 'John Brown's Raid,' Atlantic Monthly, June, 1865. 

35. Statement of John Thomas Allstadt, April 15, 1909, to K. Mayo. 

36. Letter of Miss Christine Foukc, Harper's Ferry, November 27, 1859, to the 
St. Louis Republican of December 2, 1859. 

37. N. Y. Tribune, October 29, 1859; for a more detailed report of Mr. Hunter's 
testimony, see N. Y. Herald, October 31 , 1859; Virginia Free Press, October 27, 1859- 

38. Annals of Harper's Ferry, p. 25; see also N. Y. Herald, October 19, 1859. 

39. John E. P. Daingerfield, 'John Brown at Harper's Ferry,' Century, June, 
1885, p. 267. 

40. Statement of^Capt. Ephraim G. Alburtis, N. Y. Herald, October 24, 1859; 
telegram of W. P. Smith to L. M. Cole. Harper's Ferry, October 18, Docu- 
ment Y, p. 17; telegram of same to J. W. Garrett, Monocacy, October 18, ibid., 
p. 23; Alexander R. Boteler, 'Recollections of the John Brown Raid,' Century, 
July, 1883, p. 407; report of Col. Baylor; Baltimore Despatch of October 18, 
quoted in N. Y. Tribune of October 19, 1859. 

41. Statement of W. S. Downer, N. Y. Herald, October 24, 1859. 

42. Report of Col. Robert E. Lee, as printed in Mason Report, p. 40; Reports 
of Cols. Gibson and Baylor. 

43. For the story of the fight at the Rifle Works, see Mason Report, p. 27; Mr. 
Boteler's narrative in his Century article above cited; Copeland's account of the 
whole affair is given in his letter of December 10, 1859, to Addison W. Halbert, 
— original in Department of Archives and History, Richmond, Virginia; N. Y. 
Tribune, October 19, 1859; narrative of D. H. Strother, Harper's Weekly, Novem- 
ber 5, 1859. 

44. Testimony of Lind F. Currie, Mason Report, pp. 54-59; Confession of John 
E. Cook. Cf. 'Owen Brown's Escape from Harper's Ferry,' by Ralph Keeler, 
Atlantic Monthly, March, 1874. 

45. Boteler's narrative; affidavit of G. A. Schoppert. 

46. For John Brown's proposal and Col. Baylor's reply, see the official report 
of the latter. 

47. Capt. Sinn's narrative is found in his testimony at Brown's trial, for the 
"manly and truthful" character of which John Brown afterward thanked him. 
See N. Y. Tribune, October 31, 1859. 

48. Statement of Col. Washington, Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John 
Brown, p. 40. 

49. Statement of John Thomas Allstadt, April 15, 1909. Testimonies conflict 
as to the hour of Oliver Brown's death, some averring that he died within fifteen 
minutes after sustaining his mortal wound. 

50. JohnE. P. Daingerfield, Century, June, 1885; statement of John Brown, N.Y. 
Herald, October 22, 1859; letter of Edwin Coppoc, November 22, 1859, quoted 
by Hinton, p. 488: letter of John Brown to wife and children, Charlestown, 31st 
Oct. 1859, — original in possession of Miss Brown. 

51. Document Y, p. 10. 

52. Ibid., p. 14. 

53. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, as quoted by John Esten Cook in the St. Joseph, Mo., 
Herald, September 2, 1879; Col. Lee's official report to the Adjutant-General, 
Mason Report, p. 41. 

54. Given in Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee, Soldier and Man, by the Rev. 
J. William Jones, New York, 1906, p. 105. 



642 NOTES 

55. From Stuart's letter to his mother, Fort Riley, January, i860, given in 
Life and Campaigns of J. E. B. Stuart, by H. B. McClellan, Boston, 1885, pp. 28- 

30. 

56. Col. Lee's Report. 

57. See speech of Gov. Wise, Richmond, October 21, 1859. 

58. Statement of Col. and Mrs. John A. Tompkins, Baltimore, Feb. 24, 1908, 
to K. Mayo. Mrs. Tompkins is a daughter of Col. Shriver. 

59. Letter of O. Jennings Wise to Col. J. T. Gibson, Richmond, June 5, 
i860. — Original in possession of Mr. Braxton Davenport Gibson, Charlestown, 
W. Va. 

60. Affidavit of G. A. Schoppert. 

61. Israel Green entered the Marine Corps of the United States Navy with the 
rank of second lieutenant on March 3, 1847, and was dismissed May 18, 1861, be- 
cause he resigned to go South. Although a Vermonter, he joined the Confederate 
Marine Corps with the rank of major and adjutant, on its organization, March 
16, 1861, serving throughout the war in that position. He died in Mitchell, South 
Dakota, on May 26, 1909, in his 86th year. 

62. " Major Russell had been requested by the Secretary of the Navy to accom- 
pany the marines, but, being a paymaster, could exercise no command; yet it 
was his corps." — Letter of Lieut. J. E. B. Stuart to his mother, Fort Riley, Jan. 
i860. 

"Major Russell was a charming and cultivated man of great coolness, and then 
about thirty-five years old. He jumped through the door with Green, unarmed, 
carrying in his hand only a little rattan switch." — Statement of Col. John A. 
Tompkins, Baltimore, Feb. 24, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

"Major Russell, of marines, headed them in person, unarmed. I never saw so 
thrilling a scene." — W. P. Smith (Master of Transportation, B. and O. Railroad) 
to J. W. Garrett, Harper's Ferry, Oct. 18, 1859, Document Y, p. 21. 

Major W. W. Russell became second lieutenant of Marines, April 5, 1843, 
first lieutenant, Nov. 18, 1847, and later paymaster with rank of major. He died 
Oct. 31, 1862. 

63. Quoted by Governor Wise in his speech at Richmond, October 21, 1859. 

64. 'The Capture of John Brown,' by Israel Green, North American Review, 
Dec. 1885, pp. 564-569. 

65. Ibid., p. 566; John E. P. Daingerfield, in the Century, June, 1885; 'John 
Brown's Raid,' narrative of master armorer Ben. Mills, Louisville Courier -Journal, 
July 9, 1881; statement of John Thomas Allstadt. 

66. Colonel Lee's Report; Col. Lee's despatch to the Secretary of War, Docu- 
ment Y, p. 22; N. Y. Herald, October 21, 1859. 

67. Letter of C. W. Tayleure to John Brown, Jr., June 15, 1879, a copy of 
which is in the Maryland Historical Society's Library. 

68. Governor Wise, speech of October 21, 1859. 

69. Baltimore American, quoted in N. Y. Tribune, October 22, 1859. 

70. N. Y. Herald, October 21, 1859. 

71. N. Y. Herald, November i, 1859. 

72. The Court of Enquiry met June 4, at Charlestown. See entry of June 28, 
i860. Executive Journal, Library of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Rich- 
mond. The Court remained in session six days. See also Charlestown Independent 
Democrat, June 19, i860; the Virginia Free Press, June 21, i860, gives a full 
account of the proceedings. 

73. O. Jennings Wise to Col. J. T. Gibson, Richmond, June 5, i860. — Original 
in possession of Mr. Braxton Davenport Gibson. 



NOTES 643 

74. Shepherdstown, Va., Register, October 29, 1859. 

75. Message of Gov. Wise to the Virginia Legislature, December 5, i859,Docu- 
ment No. i, December, 1859, Journal of the House of Delegates. 

76. Life of Henry A. Wise, by Barton H. Wise, New York, 1899, pp. 274-277. 

77. Ibid., p. 278. 

78. Ibid., p. 283. 

CHAPTER XIII 
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 

1. For the movements of the troops on the i8th, see Col. Lee's official report of 
October 19; Lieutenant Stuart's letter to his mother. Fort Riley, Jan. i860; Col. 
R. W. Baylor's official report. Herald, Oct. 19, 1859; testimony of John C. Unseld, 
Mason Report, pp. 7-12. 

2. Gov. Wise to J. W. Garrett, Washington, 20th Oct., Document Y, pp. 28-29; 
W. P. Smith to J. T. Crow, Baltimore, Oct. 25, ibid., p. 31; W. P. Smith to A. 
Hunter, Baltimore, October 25, ibid., pp. 31-32; W. P.Smith to Gov. Wise, Balti- 
more, Oct. 25, ibid., pp. 32-33; testimony of Andrew Hunter, Mason Report, p. 65. 

3. Richmond Despatch, Nov. 27, 1859. 

4. Confession of John E. Cook ; 'Owen Brown's Escape from Harper's Ferry,' 
by Ralph Keeler; Notes of conversation with C. P. Tidd, by T. W. Higginson, 
Feb. 10, i860, — original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. 

5. Notes of conversation with C. P. Tidd, by T. W. Higginson, Feb. 10, i860; 
testimony of Colonel Washington, Mason Report, p. 39; see also testimony of 
John P. Da[i]ngerfield, Life, Trial and Conviction, p. 79, and testimony of John 
H. Allstadt, ibid., pp. 73-74. 

6. Testimony of Colonel Washington, Mason Report, pp. 39-40; speech of 
Gov. Wise of Oct. 19, 1859. 

7. Testimony of John H. Allstadt, Mason Report, pp. 42-44; Virginia Free 
Press, Nov. 3, 1859. 

8. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 26, 1859. 

9. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 19, 1859. The man belonged to Mr. Allstadt, — state- 
ment of John Thomas Allstadt of April 15, 1909, to K. Mayo. 

10. Atlantic Monthly, June, 1865. 

11. Official Report of Colonel Lee; N. Y. Tribune, October 20; N. Y. Herald, 
October 21, 1859. 

12. Speech of Gov. Wise of October 19, 1859; Andrew Hunter, in New Orleans 
Times-Democrat, Sept. 5, 1887; N. Y. Herald, Oct. 20, 1859; Redpath, pp. 286- 
287. 

13. Official report of Col. Baylor. 

14. Official reports of Col. Lee and of Col. Baylor; letter of Lieut. J. E. B. 
Stuart to his mother. Fort Riley, Jan. i860. 

15. The adventures of the five refugees will be found in 'Owen Brown's Escape 
from Harper's Ferry,' by Ralph Keeler; Confession of John E. Cook; Notes of 
conversation with C. P. Tidd, by T. W. Higginson, Feb. 10, i860, in Higginson 
Collection; O. P. Anderson, A Voice from Harper's Ferry. Important letters re- 
lating to the escape of the survivors, and the efforts set on foot by J. Miller Mc- 
Kim, William W. Rutherford, of Harrisburg, Redpath and others, to aid their 
flight, are to be found in the J. M. McKim Correspondence, Cornell University 
Library. 

16. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 20, 1859. 



644 NOTES 

17. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 19, 1859. 

18. Cleveland Weekly Leader, Oct. 26, 1859. 

19. Oct. 20, 1859. 

20. Oct. 22, 1859. 

21. Oct. 22, 1859. 

22. Oct. 22, 1859. 

23. Liberator, October 21, 1859. 

24. Cited in the N. Y. Anzeiger des Westens, Oct. 23, 1859. 

25. Maryland. The History of a Palatinate, by William Hand Browne, Boston, 
1904, pp. 349-351- 

26. Greeley to Schuyler Colfax, Life of Schuyler Colfax, by O. J. Hollister, New 
York, 1886, p. 150. 

27. Chapter CCVIII SS2 of Code of Virginia, published in 1849 pursuant to 
an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, passed August 15, 1847. 

28. See Message of Governor Wise to the House of Delegates, Dec. 1859, Doc- 
ument No. I. Caleb Gushing, speaking in the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall, 
Boston, Dec. 8, 1859, mentioned a decision once handed down by himself that the 
arsenal of Harper's Ferry was in the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States; 
but, continuing, he showed that John Brown, besides those offences done within the 
armory grounds, committed in the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commonwealth 
of Virginia, burglary, robbery, incitement to sedition, treason and murder. Re- 
ported in the New York Herald, Dec. 9, 1859. 

29. Original in possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. 

30. Letter of Andrew Hunter to Governor Wise, Charlestown, Nov. 2, 1859, 
— Original in Department of Archives and History, Richmond. 

31. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 10, 1859. 

32. Quoted by Andrew Hunter in a letter to Governor Wise, Winchester, Dec. 
15, 1859. — Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. 

33. Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. 

34. Correspondence from Richmond of Dec. 8, in N. Y. Herald, Dec. 1 1, 
1859. 

35. Richmond Enquirer, Feb. 7, i860. 

36. Judge Richard Parker died in Winchester, Va., Nov. 10, 1893, in his eighty- 
fourth year. He was a son of Judge Richard E. Parker, of the Virginia Court 
of Appeals, and graduated in law at the University of Virginia. In 1849 he was 
Representative in the 34th Congress, and in 1851 became Circuit Court Judge. 
During the "reconstruction," he was forced to retire from the bench by the mili- 
tary authorities, and then opened a law school in Winchester. Until a few years 
before his death he was in active practice, and was always one of the leading 
lawyers of the State. 

37. Lydia Maria Child to Governor Wise, Wayland, Oct. 26, 1859, in Corre- 
spondence between Lydia Maria Child, Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason of Virginia, 
New York, i860 (pamphlet), pp. 1-2; Letters of Lydia Maria Child, Boston, 
1883, p. 104. 

38. Ibid., pp. 4-6; ibid., p. 106. 

39. Nov. 17, 1859. 

40. N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 31, 1859. 

41. Quoted in the Liberator, Nov. 4, 1859. 

42. Letter of Gov. Wise to the Philadelphia Press, quoted in the Liberator, 
Sept. 26, 1856. 

43. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 8, 1888. 

44. Mason Report, p. 187. 



NOTES 645 

45. Life, Trial and Conviction, p. 95; see also letter of Judge Russell signed 
"T.," Boston Traveller, Nov. 5, 1859. 

46. D. W. Voorhees, United States Senate, Jan. 7, 1889, to Miss Florence 
Hunter. — Original in possession of Miss Hunter, Charlcstown, W. Va. 

47. The entire proceedings of the Court of Examination and of the Circuit 
Court in the trial of Brown, with testimony, speeches and rulings, are best re- 
ported in the New York Herald. The story of the trial here given has been drawn 
from the pamphlet Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, New York, 
1859, and from a careful comparison of the accounts of the Tribune, Herald, Lib- 
erator and other contemporary papers, Northern and Southern, after an exami- 
nation of the official minutes of the trial, at Charlestown. Gen. Marcus J. 
Wright's two magazine articles, The Trial of John Brown, its Impartiality and 
Decorum Vindicated, Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 16, 357-366, and 
The Trial and Execution of John Brown, American Historical Association Papers, 
vol. 4, pp. 437-452, have also been examined. 

48. Charles James Faulkner to M. W. Cluskey, Boydville, Nov. 5, 1859, quoted 
from Washington States and Union, by Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 25, 1859. 

49. Lawson Botts was a son of Gen. Thomas H. Botts, of Virginia, grandson 
of Benjamin Botts, counsel for Aaron Burr, and was, on his mother's side, of the 
family of General Washington. In the Confederate army he was quickly pro- 
moted for distinguished gallantry, and held the rank of Colonel of the Second 
Virginia Regiment, when mortally wounded on the field, Aug. 28, 1862. Thomas 
C. Green served as a private in his friend's command. After the war he returned 
to his profession, was appointed to the bench in 1875, and served as judge in the 
West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals until 1889, in which year he died. 

50. For the above quotation and account of the despatch of Hoyt to Charles- 
town, see Hinton's John Brown and His Men, pp. 365-366. 

51. Andrew Hunter to Governor Wise, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, vol. 
II, p. 87. 

52. Hinton, p. 366. 

53. Letter of Andrew Hunter to Henry A. Wise, Charlestown, Nov. 8, 1859. — 
Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. A man of fine natural parts and 
of a classical training, Charles Harding was now a physical wreck. At the out- 
break of the war, however, he shouldered a musket and, despite his years, went 
into the Confederate ranks, serving with devotion. Left unrelieved on outpost 
guard all one stormy winter night, by oversight, he died the next day from 
pneumonia. 

54. Statement of Mr. Cleon Moore, Charlestown, April 15, 1909, to K. Mayo. 

55. Letter of D. W. Voorhees to Miss Florence Hunter, Jan. 7, 1889. Andrew 
Hunter was born in Berkeley County, Virginia, March 22, 1804, graduated at 
Hampden-Sidney College in 1822, and soon began the practice of law in Harper's 
Ferry, removing to Charlestown in 1825. He served in the Legislature of Virginia 
before and during the Civil War. His Charlestown home was destroyed by his 
cousin. Gen. David Hunter, of the Union Army, in 1864. He died in Charlestown, 
November, 22, 1888. 

56. Andrew Hunter to Gov. Wise, Charlestown, Oct. 22. — Original in Execu- 
tive Papers, Department of Archives and History, Richmond, Va. 

57. N. Y. Herald, October 28, 1859. 

58. Order Book No. 12, p. 428, Court Records of Jefferson County, Charles- 
town, W. Va. 

59. N. Y. Herald, October 26, 1859. 

60. Ibid. 



646 NOTES 

61. For the arrest of Cook, see circumstantial letters dated Chambersburg, Pa., 
Oct. 26 and Oct. 29, in the N. Y. Tribune of Oct. 29 and Nov. 4, 1859. 

62. Life, Trial and Execution, pp. 59-61 ; N. Y. Herald, Oct. 30, 1859. 

63. N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 28, 1859. 

64. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 27, 1859. 

65. Common Law Orders No. 6, p. 281, Court Records of Jefferson County. 

66. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 28, 1859; Life, Trial and Execution, p. 68. 

67. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 5, 1859. 

68. Common Law Orders No. 6, p. 283, Court Records of Jefferson County. 

69. Redpath's John Brown, p. 325. 

70. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 29, 1859. 

71. N. Y. Herald, Nov. i, 1859; see also Richmond Despatch, Nov. i, 1859. 

72. N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 29, 1859. 

73. Letter of Wendell Phillips to T. W. Higginson, Oct. 26, 1859, — original 
in Higginson Collection; of George Sennott to Thaddeus Hyatt, Boston, Dec. 
31, 1859, — original in possession of Dr. Thaddeus Hyatt, Brooklyn, N. Y.; 
testimony of John A. Andrew and of Samuel Chilton, Mason Report, pp. 186- 
188 and 137-140; Washington Star, Nov. 2, 1859. On Nov. 2, Samuel E. Sewall, 
Dr. Howe, Ralph Waldo Emerson and T. W. Higginson sent out a printed circular 
appealing for contributions for the defence of Brown and his companions, and 
offering to act as a committee to receive and apply them. Originals of the circu- 
lar are preserved in the McKim and the Higginson Collections. 

74. Brown's letters to Judges Tilden and Russell were identical. The first will 
be found in the N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 29. The original of the second is in the Kansas 
Historical Society. Judge Tilden's reply, dated Cleveland, Oct. 27, stating that 
he was himself unable to serve, but that he was sending Messrs. Griswold and 
[Albert Gallatin] Riddle, is in the possession of Miss Brown. Mr. Riddle decided, 
however, because of reluctance to appear with Griswold, not to undertake the 
case. For this in after years he expressed lasting regret. See Personal Recollections 
of War Times, by Albert Gallatin Riddle, New York, 1895, p. 3. 

75. N. Y. Herald, Nov. 21, 1859. William Green, of Richmond, a distinguished 
member of the Virginia bar, was employed to assist Mr. Chilton in presenting 
Brown's case to the Court of Appeals. Mr. Green's copy of the brief to the Court 
of Appeals, with his manuscript summary, in his own hand, of the finding of the 
full bench, is in possession of Miss Sarah Brown. 

76. Letter of Andrew Hunter, Charlestown, Oct. 25, 1859, to Gov. Wise, 
Calendar of Virginia State Papers, vol. 11, p. 87. 

77. 'John Brown's Raid,' by Andrew Hunter, New Orleans Times-Democrat, 
Sept. 5, 1887. 

78. Letter of George H. Hoyt, Charlestown, Oct. 30, 1859, to J. W. Le Barnes. 
— Original in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

79. Letter of John Brown to his brother Jeremiah, Charlestown, Nov. 12, 1859, 
The John Brown Invasion, Boston, i860, p. 49. 

80. In St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 8, 1888. 

81. "His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on 
any recorded occasion. This and one other American speech, that of John Brown 
to the court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can 
only be compared with each other, and with no fourth," — said Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, at the funeral services for Abraham Lincoln, held in Concord, April 19, 
1865. 

" I 'm so sorry not to exult with you with joy unutterable over Brown's perfect 
words. Has anything like it been said in this land or age, so brave, wise, considerate 



NOTES 647 

all round. Slavery & Freedom brought face to face standing opposite; the one all 
one black wrong, the other white as an angel," wrote W. H. Furness to J. M. 
McKim, Nov. 3, 1859. — Original in J. M. McKim Papers, Cornell University 
Library. 

82. N. Y. Herald, Nov. 3, 1859. 

83. Judge Parker in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 8, 1888. "Sentence 
was pronounced and was received in perfect silence, except a slight demonstra- 
tion of applause from one excited man, whom the Judge instantly ordered into 
custody. It illustrates the character [of the people, that several officials and 
members of the bar hastened to inform us that this man was not a citizen of the 
county." — Letter of Judge Thomas Russell, from Charlestown, in Boston Trav- 
eller, Nov. 5, 1859. 

84. Doc. No. XXXI, of the Virginia General Assembly, January 26, i860. 

85. Quoted in the Liberator, Nov. 11, 1859. 

86. Quoted in the Liberator, Nov. 18, 1859. 

87. Quoted in the Liberator, Nov. 4, 1859. 

88. Liberator, Oct. 28, 1859. 

89. Berryville, Va., Clarke Journal, Nov. 11, 1859. 

90. Quoted in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, Nov. 26, 1859. 

91. Original in Dreer Collection. 

92. Original in Dreer Collection. 

93. Original in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Among those who wrote 
to Gov. Wise in behalf of clemency was a certain Ellwood Fisher, who feared that if 
the "obscure whites and negroes" in captivity after Brown's death were hanged, 
it would be a waiver by Virginia of her "imputations" against the real offenders, 
the anti-slavery and Black Republican party of the North. — Richmond, Dec. 14, 
1859. — Original in Department of Archives and History, Richmond. 

94. Document No. i, Dec. 1859, Journal of the House of Delegates. 

95. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 28, 1859; Life, Trial and Execution, p. 64. 

96. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 28, 1859. 

97. Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. 

98. See the Governor's autograph endorsement on the above. 

99. Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. 

100. "Blair thinks a demonstration of Brown's insanity might please Wise. He 
says he has seen something in the Richmond Enquirer — probably the st. [state- 
ment] he exhibited to Andrew — which looks like an invitation." Hoyt to Le 
Barnes, Washington, Nov. 14, 1859. — Original in Kansas Historical Society. 
"Mr. Hoyt ... is now in the city for the purpose of getting affidavits of the 
acquaintances of Brown as to his sanity. A large number of affidavits have been 
prepared at Akron, Hudson, Cleveland, etc., and they are made by men of the 
first respectability, who have known Brown for many years intimately; there is 
no difference of opinion among them as to the monomania of Brown upon the 
subject of slavery." Cleveland|(Daily) Leader, Nov. 18, 1859. The originals of all 
the affidavits are in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. Hoyt submitted the 
affidavits, accompanied by a letter to Gov. Wise written in Chilton's name. For 
this letter, see Liberator, Dec. 2, 1859; for a letter by Chilton, denying any hand 
in the matter and stating his position concerning it, see National Intelligencer, 
Dec. 13, 1859. 

loi. New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, May 27, 1884. 



648 NOTES 



CHAPTER XIV 

BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 

1. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 147-159. 

2. Letter of J. W. Le Barnes to R. J. Hinton. See Hinton's John Brown and 
His Men, p. 366. Hoyt's original sketch of the jail, showing arrangement of cells 
and stations of guards, as drawn for and remitted to the New England confeder- 
ates, is now in the Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

3. S. C. Pomeroy in the Christian Cynosure, March 31, 1887. 

4. Statement of Mrs. Russell, Jamaica Plain, Mass., Jan. 11, 1908, to K. 
Mayo. 

5. Letter of T. W. Higginson, Worcester, Nov. 4, 1859, to the family of John 
Brown at North Elba. — Original in possession of Miss Brown. 

6. Ibid. 

7. Original in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; see also letter of 
George H.Hoyt, undated, to " Mr. Tomlinson."— Original in J.M. McKim Papers, 
Cornell University Library. 

8. Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 226-228. 

9. J. M. McKim, Philadelphia, Nov. 8, 1859, to T. W. Higginson. — Original 
in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. J, M. McKim's correspondence 
relating to Mrs. Brown's movements during the month of November is preserved 
in the Cornell University Library; see also Life and Letters of Peter and Susan 
Lesley, edited by Mary Lesley Ames, New York, 1909, pp. 377-380. 

10. Telegram of George Sennott, received in Worcester, Nov. 5, to T. W. Hig- 
ginson. — Original in Higginson Collection. 

11. J. M. McKim to T. W. Higginson, Nov. 8, 1859, — original in Higginson 
Collection; see also letter of T. W. Higginson to J. M. McKim, Worcester, Nov. 5, 
1859, — original in Cornell University Library. 

12. Copied in letter of S. G. Howe to T. W. Higginson, Nov. 9, 1859, — ori- 
ginal in Higginson Collection; letter of T. W. Higginson to J. M. McKim, Worces- 
ter, Nov. 10, 1859, — original in Cornell University Library. 

13. Life of G. L. Stearns, by F. P. Stearns, p. 187. 

14. Reminiscences of James Hanway, Topeka Commonwealth, Jan. 31, 1878. 
This is erroneous as to dates, but is otherwise vouched for by R. J. Hinton, 
who engineered the Kansas effort to rescue Stevens and Hazlett. S. C. Adair, 
nephew of John Brown, confirms the story concerning Mary Partridge, in his 
statement of Oct. 2, 1908, to the author. 

15. Memorandum of T. W. Higginson attached to Le Barnes's letter of Nov. 15, 
1859, to Higginson. — Original in Higginson Collection. 

16. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 166. 

17. Le Barnes to T. W. Higginson, Nov. 14 and 15, 1859. — Original in Hig- 
ginson Collection. 

18. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 165. 

19. Lysander Spooner to T. W. Higginson, Nov. 20, 1859.— Original in Hig- 
ginson Collection. 

20. Le Barnes to Higginson, Nov. 22, 1859. — Original in Higginson Collec- 
tion. 

21. Ibid. 

22. Ibid. 

23. Ibid. 



NOTES 649 

24. Le Barnes, Nov. 27, from New York, to HIgginson. — Original in Higgin- 
son Collection. 

25. Ibid. 

26. Ibid. 

27. Ibid. 

28. Sanborn to Higginson, Nov. 28, 1859. — Original in Higginson Collec- 
tion. 

29. Message of Wise to Legislature of Virginia, Dec. 5, 1859. 

30. The character of these letters is well summarized in the report of the Joint 
Committee of the Legislature of Virginia, Jan. 26, i860. Many of them have 
been reprinted in the Richmond Times of Dec. 22, 1901, and in the Virginia 
Magazine oj History and Biography, April, 1902, to July, 1903. Those cited here 
are to be found therein, save the one from Lewisburg, which is in the possession 
of Braxton Davenport Gibson, of Charlestown, West Virginia. 

31. Webb Scrap-Book, vol. 17, p. 157, Kansas Historical Society; see also N. Y. 
Herald, Dec. 4 and 17, 1859. 

32. Richmond Despatch, Nov. 24, 1859. 

33. See ' John Brown's Raid,' by Andrew Hunter, New Orleans Times-Democrat, 
Sept. 5, 1887. 

34. See Document Y, pp. 31-38. 

35. Original in possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. 

36. Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 21 and 25, 1859. 

37. Richmond Despatch, Nov. 15, 1859. For Hoyt's own account of his expul- 
sion, see his letter to the N. Y. Tribune of Nov. 17, 1859. Sennott, however, in a 
letter signed as "Counsel for Brown and A. D. Stevens," in the Philadelphia Press 
of Nov. 16, 1859, denied that Brown's counsel was advised to leave Charlestown. 

38. Statement of Cleon Moore, a member of the Charlestown militia company, 
Charlestown, March 20, 1908, to the author. 

39. Ibid., and Charlestown despatch in Baltimore American of Nov. 22, 1859. 

40. Printed in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, May, 
1907. 

41. Harper's Ferry, Nov. 19, 1859. — Originals of both in Mr. Edwin Tatham s 
collection. 

42. Document Y, pp. 4i~50. 

43. 'John Brown's Raid,' by Andrew Hunter, New Orleans Times-Democrat, 
Sept. 5, 1887. 

44. Gov. Wise's copy of original order of Nov. 24, 1859, in Department of 
Archives and History, Richmond. 

45. Document No. i, p. 51. 

46. Ibid., pp. 52-60. 

47. Document Y, p. 62. 

48. Mr. Hunter, in New Orleans Times-Democrat, Sept. 5, 1887. 

49. Document Y, p. 62. 

50. See, for example, quotation from Charlestown Spirit of Jefferson, in Rich- 
mond Enquirer of Dec. 13, 1859, and the Enquirer's editorial of that date; Balti- 
more Exchange of Dec. 9; also Life of Henry A. Wise, by Barton H. Wise, p. 255. 
Later, in a speech at the State Whig Convention of i860, John Minor Botts ridi- 
culed Gov. Wise and his "men in buckram," calling him the "unepauletted hero 
of the Osawatomie war." "Whatever John Brown left undone against the peace 
and prosperity of Virginia," declared Mr. Botts, "has been most effectually car- 
ried out by his executor, the late Governor of Virginia." From Four Years Under 
Marse Robert, by Major Robert Stiles, New York, 1904, p. 32. 



650 NOTES 

51. Document No. xxxi, Virginia State Papers, p. 6. 

52. Life of Henry A. Wise, by Barton H. Wise, pp. 263-264. 

53. Ibid., p. 405. 

54. Major-Gen. William B. Taliaferro to Governor Wise, Charlestown, Dec. 
2, 1859. — Original in possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. 

55. John Brown's Expedition, Reviewed in a Letter from Rev. Theodore 
Parker, at Rome, to Francis Jackson, Boston. Boston, i860 (pamphlet), p. 7. 

56. Higginson to Sanborn, Worcester, Feb. 3, i860. — Original in Higginson 
Collection, Boston Public Library. This letter never was sent. 

57. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, by Himself, p. 343 et seq. and p. 358; 
see also Douglass's self-justification in his paper, the North Star, of Nov. 4, 1859. 

58. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years, vol. i, pp. 188 and 200. 

59. Original in Higginson Collection. 

60. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years, vol. i, p. 188. 

61. J. A. Andrew to G. L. Stearns, Oct. 21, 1859. — Original in G. L. Stearns 
Papers. 

62. Life of George L. Stearns, by F. P. Stearns, pp. 188 and 198. 

63. John A. Andrew to Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, Boston, Dec. 12, 1859, — 
Original in possession of the author. 

64. See N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 16, 1859. 

65. Recollections of Seventy Years, pp. 228-230; see also Sanborn's Life and 
Letters of John Brown, pp. 438 and 447. 

66. See a first draft of a letter dated Nov. 15, 1859, now in the Higginson Col- 
lection, for an emphatic statement of Mr. Higginson's feeling at that time about 
Dr. Howe's conduct. 

67. See letter of Higginson to Sanborn, Worcester, Nov. 15, 1859; also letter 
of Sanborn to Higginson, Concord, Nov. 17, 1859. — Both originals in Higginson 
Collection. 

68. S. G. Howe to T. W. Higginson, Boston, Feb. 16, i860. — Original in Higgin- 
son Collection. 

69. Ibid. 

70. See F. B. Sanborn's letter to the N. Y. Evening Post, dated March 15, 1878, 
quoted in Recollections of Seventy Years, p. 230. 

71. F. B. Sanborn to T. W. Higginson, Concord, Nov. 17, 1859. — Original in 
Higginson Collection. 

72. A first draft of this letter is also in the Higginson Collection. 

73. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years, p. 250. For the original of the 
letter here cited, see F. B. Sanborn to T. W. Higginson, Concord, Nov. 19, 1859, 
in Higginson Collection. In Recollections of Seventy Years, Mr. Sanborn recounts 
circumstantially his experiences in this connection. Other related matter will be 
found in the Higginson Collection, and also in Mr. Sanborn's letters to Charles 
Sumner in the month of April, i860. — Originals in Sumner Correspondence, 
Library of Harvard University. 

74. Sanborn, Recollections, pp. 206-207. 

75. See letter of G. L. Stearns to S. G. Howe, Philadelphia, Feb. 27, i860. — 
Original in G. L. Stearns Papers. 

76. Ibid. 

77. Mason Report, p. 242. 

78. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith (suppressed edition), p. 244. 

79. See letter of Sanborn to Higginson of Nov. 17, 1859. — Original in Hig- 
ginson Collection. Cf. Recollections of Seventy Years, p. 196; see also Sanborn's 
Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 438, and Frothingham's Gerrit Smith, pp. 242-243. 



NOTES 651 

80. Testimony of John Brown, Jr., taken before a United States Commissioner 
in the case of Gerrit Smith vs. the [Chicago] Tribune Company, at Sandusky, 
Ohio, July 19, 1867, — Mr. Horace White's copy of this, in the handwriting of 
the stenographer who took the notes, is in the author's possession; Sanborn's 
Recollections, pp. 196-197. 

81. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith (suppressed edition), p. 249. 

82. Gerrit Smith's Manifesto, ibid., pp. 253-255. 

83. Ibid., p. 241. The editor of the Chicago Tribune in 1867, Mr. Horace White, 
a man of highest integrity and judicial temperament, when his paper was sued for 
libel by Gerrit Smith for asserting that the latter feigned insanity in order to es- 
cape the consequences of the raid, made an investigation of his own, taking the 
testimony of John Brown, Jr., and Frederick Douglass, and became fully convinced 
that the assertion was true. The Tribune retracted its charge, but Mr. White 
remains of the same opinion. 

84. Original in possession of Miss Brown. 

Well might the words written by another anti-slavery worker, when confined in 
a Southern prison for attacking slavery, have been penned of John Brown at this 
time: 

"High walls and huge the body may confine. 
And iron gates obstruct the prisoner's gaze, 
And massive bolts may baffle his design, 
And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways; 
Yet scorns the immortal mind this base control! 
No chains can bind it, and no cell enclose: 
Swifter than light, it flies from pole to pole, 
And, in a flash, from earth to heaven it goes!" 
From a sonnet, 'Freedom of the Mind,' by William Lloyd Garrison. — Life of 
William Lloyd Garrison, vol. i, p. 179. 

85. Col. William Fellows, a jail guard, in N. Y. Sun, Feb. 13, 1898. 

86. The Johti Brown Invasion, pp. 47-48. 

87. Original in Dreer Collection. 

88. John Brown to "Wife & Children every one," Charlestown, Nov. 8, 1859. — 
Original in possession of Mrs. Clara Endicott Debuchy, Boston, Mass. 

89. From copy in possession of Miss Brown. 

90. From the original in the possession of Theodore Parker Adams, Plymouth, 
Mass. 

91. John Brown to Rev. Luther Humphrey. — Original in possession of Messrs. 
D. R. and William G. Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio. 

92. Original in Higginson Collection. 

93. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 5, 1859. 

94. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 31, 1859. 

95. From MS. of the late Rev. George V. Leech, who was present at this in- 
terview. — Original in possession of Mrs. George V. Leech, Washington D. C. 

96. Letter of Nov. 23, 1859; Redpath's Life, p. 359. 

97. See issue of Independent Democrat of Nov. 22, 1859. 

98. Statement of Mrs. Russell, Jan. 11, 1908, to K. Mayo. 

99. See letter of Thomas Russell to C. A. Foster, Plymouth, Mass. — Original 
in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; Mr. Phillips's speech will be found 
in the N. Y. Herald of Dec. 16, 1859. 

100. T. W. Higginson to the family at North Elba, Worcester, Nov. 4, 1859. — 
Original in possession of Miss Brown. 

lOi. Mrs. Spring's MS. narrative is in the possession of the author. 



652 NOTES 

102. Statement of E. A. Brackett to K. Mayo, Winchester, Jan. 13, 1908; for 
Hoyt's letter, and a Liberator editorial, relating to this bust, see the Liberator, 
Jan. 6, i860. 

103. See letter of M. B. Lowry in the True American, Nov. 26, 1859; A Tribute 
of Gratitude to the Hon. M. B. Lowry, Philadelphia, 1869 (pamphlet), p. 31; let- 
ter of Gov. Wise to B. F. Sloan, Richmond, Dec. 10, 1859, — original in Dreer 
Collection; letter of M. B. Lowry to Mrs. John Brown, Erie, Pa., Dec. 3, 1859, 
— original in possession of Miss Brown. 

104. See S. C. Pomeroy's letter in the Christian Cynosure of March 31, 1887. 

105. Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 29, 1859, quoting correspondence of Baltimore 
American; John Brown, by Henry Clay Pate. 

106. Telegram of Col. Davis to Gov. Wise, Nov. 19, 1859, — original in pos- 
session of Mr. Edwin Tatham; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 22, 23 and Dec. 3; N. Y. Trib- 
une, Nov. 30; Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 25 and 29, 1859, citing correspondence 
of Baltimore American. 

107. The Two Rebellions, or Treason Unmasked, by a Virginian, Richmond, 

1865, p. 97- , . , 

108. Richmond Daily Despatch, Nov. 24, 1859. "A member of a volunteer 
company who visited Old Brown some days ago, was put under arrest and sent 
home under an escort for having observed to Brown that he would like to have 
the pleasure of putting a rope around his neck." — N. Y. Herald, Dec. 4, 1859. 

109. See Cooper Union speech of Wendell Phillips, reported in N. Y. Herald, 
Dec. 16, 1859. 

no. Henry A. Wise, by Barton H. Wise, pp. 249-250. 

111. Mason Report, pp. 67-68. A MS. copy of the letter, now in the Dreer 
Collection, bears the following endorsement in Gov. Wise's hand: "This was 
prepared from a promise made to me after a statement made in presence of Brig. 
Genl. William C. Scott of Powhatan. H. A. Wise." 

112. J. M. McKim to T. W. Higginson, Philadelphia, Nov. 8 and 11, 1859, — 
original in Higginson Collection; T. W. Higginson to Mrs. John Brown, Worces- 
ter, Nov. 13, 1859, — original in possession of Miss Brown; J. M. McKim 
to John Brown, Philadelphia, Nov. 22, 1859, — original in possession of Miss 
Brown. 

113. Mary D. Brown to the Hon. H. A. Wise, Philadelphia, Nov. 21, 1859, — 
original in Dreer Collection; J. M. McKim to T. W. Higginson, Philadelphia, 
Nov. 23, 1859, — original in Higginson Collection. 

114. The originals of both letters of Gov. Wise to Mrs. Brown are in the Dreer 
Collection. 

115. See draft of telegram in Gov. Wise's hand, endorsed on telegram of Gen. 
Taliaferro, Charlestown, Nov. 30, 1859. — Original in Dreer Collection. 

116. Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 6, 1859, citing correspondence of Baltimore 
American. 

117. See letter of J. M. McKim, unsigned, dated Nov. 28, in National Anti- 
Slavery Standard, Dec. 3, 1859. 

118. For accounts of the meeting, see N. Y. Tribune and N. Y. Herald of Dec. 

3 and 5, 1859. , ,T ,- 

119. Testimony of Andrew Hunter, Mason Report, p. 67; see also John 
Brown's Raid,' by Andrew Hunter, New Orleans Times-Democrat, Sept. 5, 1887. 
This will, dated Dec. 2, 1859, is recorded in Will Book No. 16, p. 143, of Jefferson 
County Court Records. 

120. Original in the George L. Stearns Papers, Medford, Mass. 

121. Original in Dreer Collection. 



NOTES 653 

122. The passages marked are thus given in the N. Y. Illustrated News of 
Dec. 10, 1859: 

"Genesis XV, 13, 14; XL, 11, 12, 13, 55, 56, 57; L, 15 to 21. Exodus i, all; 11,3,4, 1 1 
to 15; III, 7, 12 to 22; V, 13 to 23; VI, 4 and 5; xv, i to 13; xviii, 9 to 11; xxi, 5 
to 10, 15, 26 to 34; XXII, 21 to 24; XXIII, I to 9. Leviticus xxiv, 13, 15, 18, 33 
to 37; XXV, 8 to 17, 35 to 55; xxvi, 13, 35, 36. Deuteronomy i, 17; X, 17 to 19; 
XV, 12 to 19; XVI, II to 14; XXI, ID to 14; XXIII, 15 to 17; XXIV, 7, 14 to 18, 22. 
Job XXIV, 17 to 19; XXIX, 12 to 14; XXXI, 13 to 16, 38 to 40. Proverbs xiv, 20 to 
22, 31; XXII, 16, 22, 23. Ecclesiastes iv, i, 2; in, 16, 17; v, 8, 9; vii, 7. Isaiah 
IX, 13 to 17; XXXIII, 15; XLii, 7; XLix, 24 to 26; Lii, 5; Liv, 14; Lxi, 3 to 8; lxiv, 
3 to 15; LXI, I, 2. Jeremiah 11, 8, 34, 35; v, 13, 14, 25 to 31; vi, 13 to 17; vii, i 
to 9; VIII, 10 to 12; IX, I to 10, 23, 24; XII, I to 4. Matthew v, i6 to 44; vii, 
16 to 19; IX, 13; XII, 7; xxiii, 14, 23, 29 to 35; XXV, 44 to 46. Revelations xviii, 
13." This Bible, originally presented to John H. Blessing, of Charlestown, is now 
in the possession of Mr. Frank G. Logan, of Chicago. 

123. The original of this letter, with its enclosures, is in the Dreer Collection. 

124. Col. William Fellows, in N. Y. Sun of Feb. 13, 1898. 

125. N. Y. Tribune and N. Y. Herald, Dec. 3, 1859; Dr. Starry's ' Recollections,' 
in Semi-Weekly Tribune, May 27, 1884. 

126. Col. William Fellows, in N. Y. Sun of Feb. 13, 1898. 

127. Original in possession of Mr. Frank G. Logan, of Chicago. 

' 128. General Turner Ashby was born in Rose Hill, Fauquier County, Virginia, 
in 1824. A planter and a local politician, at the outbreak of the war he raised a 
regiment, the Seventh Virginia Cavalry, and became its lieutenant-colonel. He 
was killed in action near Harrisburg, Virginia, June 6, 1862. 

129. See Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 29, 1859. 

130. See letter of J. M. McKim to Mrs. John Brown, Philadelphia, Dec. 2, 
i860. — Original in possession of Miss Brown. 

131. Statement of Mr. Cleon Moore, Charlestown, March 20, 1908, to K. 
Mayo; N. Y. Herald and N. Y. Tribime, Dec. 3, 1859. 

132. Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson, by his widow, Mary Anna Jackson, Louis- 
ville, 1895, p. 131. 

133. For Col. Preston's detailed account of the execution, dated Charlestown 
Dec. 2, 1859, see Life and Letters of Margaret Juyikin Preston, by Elizabeth Preston 
Allan, Boston, 1903, pp. 111-117; see also Gen. T. J. Jackson's narrative, in the 
volume cited above; Murat Halstead's recollections were published in the Inde- 
pendent, Dec. I, 1898; Mr. Andrew Hunter's article in the New Orleans Times- 
Democrat is important here. The author has also consulted, among other sources, 
aside from local and metropolitan press accounts, the Military Order-Book of the 
John Brown Raid, Department of Archives, Richmond; Doc. No. xxviii, Vir- 
ginia State Papers; military orders in the possession of Mr. Braxton Davenport 
Gibson, of Charlestown; the affidavit of John Avis (see Appendix), in possession 
of Rev. Dr. Abner Hopkins, of Charlestown; and the statements of Col. Chew, 
Mr. Cleon Moore and Mr. L. P. Starry, Charlestown, March, 1908, of Mr. 
Charles P. Conklyn, Charlestown, April 9, 1909, of Mayor Philip A. Welford, 
Richmond, April 21, 1909, and of Mr. Jacob Tutwiler, Harper's Ferry, April 14, 
1909, all eye-witnesses of the execution, all to K. Mayo. 

134. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 3, 1859. 

135. Life of John A. Andrew, by Henry Greenleaf Pearson, Boston, 1904, 
vol. I, p. 100. 



654 NOTES 



CHAPTER XV 
YET SHALL HE LIVE 

1. A Memoir of Hector Tyndale, Philadelphia, 1882, p. 8; letter of Major T. J. 
Jackson to his wife, Charlestown, Dec. 2, 1859, cited in Memoirs of Stonewall 
Jackson. 

2. Order of Gen. William B. Taliaferro to Andrew E. Kennedy, N. Y. Herald, 
Dec. 5, 1859; Order No. 55, Special Order-Book of the John Brown Raid, Depart- 
ment of Archives and History, Richmond. 

3. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 6, 1859; see also letter of Alfred M. Barbour, Superin- 
tendent of the arsenal, to J. Miller McKim, Harper's Ferry, Dec. 8, 1859, — 
original in J. M. McKim Collection, Cornell University. 

4. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, ' Burial of John Brown's Followers,' New Eng- 
land Magazine, April, 1901. 

5. Broadside announcement, dated Ravenna, Friday morning, Dec. 2, 1859, in 
Department of Archives and History, Richmond, Va. 

6. See A Tribute of Respect Commemorative of the Worth and Sacrifice of John 
Brown of Ossawatomie, Cleveland, 1859, a pamphlet containing an account of the 
Cleveland meeting. 

7. Historical Address delivered 12th of January, 1908, by Horace Howard 
Furness, Philadelphia, 1908, p. 16; see also Life and Letters of Peter and Susan 
Lesley, p. 379. 

8. Liberator, Dec. 9, 1859. 

9. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 5, 1859; Liberator, Dec. 9, 1859. Less than two months 
later, at another meeting, Mr. Garrison said: "The sympathy and admiration 
now so widely felt for him [John Brown] prove how marvelous has been the change 
effected in public opinion during thirty years of moral agitation — a change so 
great, indeed, that whereas, ten years since, there were thousands who could not 
endure my lightest word of rebuke to the South, they can now easily swallow 
John Brown whole, and his rifle into the bargain. In firing his gun, he has merely 
told us what time of day it is. It is high noon, thank God!" — Liberator, Feb. 3, 
i860. 

10. Herald, Nov. 20, 1859; Liberator, Nov. 25, 1859; The John Brown Invasion, 
pp. 96-110. 

11. Horace Howard Furness, Historical Address of Jan. 12, 1908, p. 18. 

12. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 5, 1859. 

13. This story of the trip to North Elba with the body is drawn from the N. Y. 
Herald, Dec. Sand 6; The John Brown Invasion, pp. 70-79; and the letter of D. 
Turner to Dr. Joshua Young, Salem, Jan. 29, 1899, — original in possession of 
Dr. Young's family, Winchester, Mass. 

14. N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 12, 1859; The John Brown Invasion, pp. 72-79; 'The 
Funeral of John Brown,' by Rev. Joshua Young, New England Magazine^ April, 
1904. 

15. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 1859. 

16. Boston Courier Report of the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Thursday, 
Dec. 8, 1859; Boston, 1859 (pamphlet). 

17. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 20, 1859. 

18. Rise and Progress of the Bloody Outbreak at Harper's Ferry published 
by the New York Democratic Vigilant Association, New York, 1859 (pam- 
phlet), p. 4. 



NOTES 655 

19. Cabot's Emerson, p. 597; Life of Henry W. Longfellow, by Samuel Long- 
fellow, vol. 2, p. 347. 

20. Lecture delivered in Worcester, Mass., Dec. 12, reported in Ashtabula, 
Ohio, Sentinel, Dec. 15, 1859. 

21. Letter from Theodore Parker at Rome to Francis Jackson, Boston, Nov. 

24, 1859; John W. Chadwick's Theodore Parker, Boston, 1900, p. 366. 

22. Letter of Dec. 4, 1859, to Dr. Henry Drisler, Life and Letters of Francis 
Lieber, edited by Thomas S. Perry, Boston, 1882, pp. 307-308. 

23. As reported at the time by Dr. Wilder; see Topeka, Kansas, Capital, October, 

25, 1908. 

24. New York Herald, Feb. 28, i860. 

25. Works of William H. Seward, Boston, 1884, vol. 4, p. 636. 

26. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st session, vol. 50, pp. 553-554. 

27. Ibid., p. 61. 

28. Delivered Jan. 24, i860. Cited in Pleasant A. Stovall's Robert Toombs, 
New York, 1892, pp. 169-174. 

29. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 10, 1859. 

30. Liberator, Dec. 16, 1859. 

31. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 15, 1859. 

32. Doc. No. XXXI ; report of the Joint Committee of the General Assembly 
of Virginia on the Harper's Ferry Outrages, Jan. 26, i860. 

33. Virginia State Papers, Doc. No. LViil. 

34. Liberator, Dec. 16, 1859. 

35. Benjamin F. Shambaugh, Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of 
Iowa, Iowa City, 1903, vol. 2, pp. 240-241; for the Minority Protest, see Senate 
and House Journal of the 8th General Assembly of Iowa. 

36. Quoted in the Liberator, Dec. 16, 1859. 

37. Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 17, i860. 

38. Nov. 28, 1859. 

39. Dec. 2, 1859. 

40. Weekly Portage Sentinel, Dec. 7, 1859. 

41. Dec. 3 and 7, 1859. 

42. John Brown, par Victor Hugo, Paris, 186 1. 

43. Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees. . . . Speech delivered at Charlestown, Virginia, 
N0V.8, 185Q. . . . Tallahassee, Fla. i860 (pamphlet). 

44. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 16, 1859. 

45. The Coppoc letter is in the N. Y. Tribune of Dec. 12, 1859. See also letter 
of Thomas Winn, Springdale, Iowa, ist mo. 13, i860, to Mary A. Brown, — 
original in possession of Miss Brown; statement of Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, 
Petrolia, Oct. 2 and 3, 1908. 

46. Charles Lenhart, an lowan, a printer by trade, had led a company of four- 
teen men in numerous attacks upon the Border Ruffians, making a name for him- 
self as a Free State leader second only to those of Capt. Montgomery and John 
Brown. He easily found employment in a printing-office in Charlestown, and, 
professing profound hatred for all Abolitionists, was readily enlisted as a guard. 
He remained in Charlestown until after the execution of Stevens and Hazlett, 
when he returned to Kansas. He died in March, 1863, when a first lieutenant 
in Col. William A. Phillips's Third Regiment of the Indian Brigade. See letter 
to Leavenworth, Kansas, Conservative, May, 1863, by Richard J. Hinton; also 
Hinton's Johji Brown, pp. 396-397. 

47. Confession of Cook and Coppoc on the morning of their execution, Hinton, 
pp. 402-403; see also N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 17, 1859. 



656 NOTES 

48. Richman's John Brown, p. 49. 

49. Confession of Cook and Coppoc. 

50. Statement of Annie Brown Adams, Petrolia, Oct. 2, 1908; an important 
letter in the extradition proceedings in the case of Hazlett is in the J. Miller 
McKim Collection, Cornell University Library, signed "C" and dated Carlisle, 
Nov. I, 1859; see also John Brown's i?azJ, a pamphlet by W. J. Shearer, compris- 
ing a lecture delivered Jan. 17, 1905, at Carlisle. Pa. 

51. MS. narrative of Jennie Dunbar Garcelon, October, 1908, in possession of 
the author; Miss Dunbar's letter to Redpath, Cherry Valley, Ohio, May 7, i860, 

— copy in possession of the author; Mrs. Spring's MS. narrative, in possession of 
the author; see also MS. material in the Kansas Historical Society. 

52. Hinton to Higginson, Dec. 13, 1859. — Original in Higginson Collection. 

53. T. W. Higginson to his wife, Feb. 17, i860. — Original in Higginson Col- 
lection. . . 

54. Le Barnes to Higginson, Boston, Jan. 11, i860. — Original in Higgmson 

Collection. 

55. See Reminiscences of James Hanway in Topeka Commonwealth, Jan. 31, 
1878, in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society, and Hinton's letter of April 
29, 1894, appended thereto; see also Hinton's John Brown, p. 521. 

56. James Montgomery (Henry Martin) to T. W. Higginson (Rev. Theo. 
Bi-own),- original in T. W. Higginson Collection; Kansas Historical Society 
Collections, vol. 8, p. 215. 

57. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 230; letter of Annie Brown, North 
Elba. Jan. 1 1 , 1 860, to T. W. Higginson. — Original in Higginson Collection.^ 

58. W. W. Thayer, Indianapolis, Nov. 15, 1894, to R. J. Hinton, — original in 
Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; see also interview of Thayer in Weekly 
Indiana State Journal, Indianapolis, Aug. 23, 1893; also Kansas Historical Society 
Collections, vol. 8, p. 215, and Hinton, p. 526, and Hinton Collections. 

59. T. W. Higginson's pencilled memorandum of conversation with C. P. Tidd. 
Feb. 10, i860, and letter of C. P. Tidd to T. W. Higginson, Jan. 20, i860. — 
Originals in Higginson Collection. 

60. For the negotiations with the Germans, see Hinton Papers, in Kansas 
Historical Society, published in vol. 8 of the Collections ; also letter of Hinton to 
Higginson, Feb. 18, i860, in Higginson Collection; Hinton's John Brown, p. 525. 

61. Higginson in Worcester to Le Barnes in New York, Feb. 15 and 16, i860. 

— Original in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; Hinton, p. 525. 

62. O. E. Morse, 'Attempted Rescue of John Brown,' in Kansas Historical 
Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 215. Like Hanway, Col. D. R. Anthony, J. A. Pike 
and others, Mr. Morse proves the fallibility of the human mind by insisting that 
the Kansans under Montgomery went East to rescue John Brown, not Stevens 
and Hazlett. The weight of evidence is clearly on the other side, because of R. J. 
Hinton's denial of Hanway's statement, and the contemporary letters written by 
Col. Higginson from Harrisburg to his wife, the preservation of which was a most 
valuable service to history on Col. Higginson's part. The testimony of W. W. 
Thayer is also on the side of the later expedition. Curiously enough, J. W. 
Le Barnes, who, with Hinton and Montgomery, had more to do with the efforts 
to save Stevens and Hazlett than any one else, and many of whose contemporary 
letters telling of the plot are preserved, assured Hinton on June 30, 1894, "I 
never knew anything about the Stevens and Hazlett plan." These lapses of 
memory will suggest to the reader the difficulty of reconciling the recollections of 
men contemporary with Brown which has repeatedly confronted the writer. 

63. Kansas Historical Sofiety Collectio?is, vol. 8, pp. 215-216. 



NOTES 657 

64. See original telegram in Higginson Collection. 

65. See original telegram in Higginson Collection. 

66. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, pp. 216, 219, 222, 225. 

67. Hinton, p. 524; T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 232. 

68. Original memorandum in Higginson Collection. 

69. T. W. Higginson to his wife, Feb. 17, i860. — Original in Higginson Col- 
lection. 

70. T. VV. Higginson to J. W. Le Barnes, Feb. 17, i860. — Origmal m HmtoQ 
Papers, Kansas Historical Society. 

71. T. W. Higginson to his wife, Harrisburg, Feb. 19, i860. —Original in Higgin- 
son Collection. 

72. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 233; Hinton, pp. 501-502; O. E. 
Morse, in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 218. 

73. Hinton, p. 524. _ , 

74. John Letcher to Andrew Hunter, Richmond, Va., Jan. 26, i860. — Origmal 
in Department of Archives and History, Richmond. 

75. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 234; W. W. Thayer, in Indianapolis, Ind., State 
Journal, Aug. 23, 1893. 

76. Thayer, as above. 

77. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 220; Cheerful Yesterdays, 
p. 231; R. J. Hinton, The Rebel Invasion of Missouri and Kansas, Chicago, 1865, 
pp. 65-66. 

78. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 234. 

79. Hinton, John Brown and His Men, p. 526; Hazlett to Mrs. Rebecca Spring, 
March 15, i860. — Original in possession of the author. 

80. Aside from that in correlated biographies and in the contemporary press, 
interesting material regarding the Hyatt case will be found in the letters of John 
A. Andrew, Horace Greeley, G. L. Stearns, S. E. Sewall and others, to Charles 
Sumner, in the Sumner Correspondence, Library of Harvard University; see also 
the letter and scrap-book of Thaddeus Hyatt, kept during his imprisonment and 
now in possession of his son. Dr. Thaddeus Hyatt, of Brooklyn. 

81. June 22, i860. 

82. An admirable outline of the contest for the Speakership is to be found in 
Rhodes, vol. 2, pp. 418-426. 

83. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, ist session, vol. 50, pp. 29-30. 

84. Ibid., p. 124. 

85. Quoted in the Liberator, Dec. 23, 1859. On Nov. 20, 1859, the N. Y. 
Herald printed the following from its Richmond correspondent: "Every seventy- 
five men out of a hundred in this community are in favor of disunion at this 
moment. I have not spoken to a man for four weeks past upon that subject who 
was not ready to take grounds in favor of a Southern confederacy. A hint from 
Governor Wise favoring such a project would be followed by a substantial decla- 
ration in approval of it in Virginia and the whole South." 

86. 'The John Brown Song,' by J.H.Jenkins, N. Y. EveningPost, Nov. 27, 1909. 

87. Johnston and Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens, Philadelphia, 1878, 

P- 367- , ^ _, . 

88. Congressional Globe, vol. 54, Part i, 36th Congress, 2d session, p. 12. 

89. George Hoadley to Salmon P. Chase, Cincinnati, Dec. 3, 1859. — Original 
in Salmon P. Chase Correspondence, MSS. Department, Library of Congress. 

90. "L'Assassinat de la Delivrance par la Liberte" John Brown, par Victor 
Hugo, Paris, 1861, p. 5. 



APPENDIX 
A 

sambo's mistakes 

The original document, as written by John Brown, is preserved 
in the Maryland Historical Society and reads thus: — 

Chap ist 

Sambo's Mistakes For the Rams Horn 

Mess Editors Notwithstanding I may have committed a few mis- 
takes in the course of a long life like others of my colored brethren 
yet you will perceive at a glance that I have always been remarkable 
for a seasonable discovery of my errors and quick perception of the 
true course. I propose to give you a few illustrations in this and the 
following chapters. For instance when I was a boy I learned to read 
but instead of giving my attention to sacred & profane history by 
which I might have become acquainted with the true character of 
God & of man learned the true course for individuals, societies, & 
nations to pursue stored my mind with an endless variety of rational 
and practical ideas, profited by the experience of millions of others 
of all ages, fitted myself for the most important stations in life, & 
fortified my mind with the best & wisest resolutions, & noblest sen- 
timents, & motives, I have spent my whole life devouring silly 
novels & other miserable trash such as most of newspapers of the 
day & other popular writings are filled with, thereby unfitting myself 
for the realities of life & acquiring a taste for nonsense & low wit, so 
that I have no rellish for sober truth, useful knowledge or practical 
wisdom. By this means I have passed through life without profiit to 
myself or others, a mere blank on which nothing worth peruseing is 
written. But I can see in a twink where I missed it. Another error 
into which I fell in early life was the notion that chewing & smoking 
tobacco would make a man of me but little inferior to some of the 
whites. The money I spent in this way would with the interest of it 
have enabled me to have relieved a great many sufferers supplyed 
me with a well selected interesting library, & pa[i]d for a good farm 
for the support & comfort of my old age; whereas I have now 
neith[er] books, clothing, the satisfaction of having benefited others 
nor wher to lay my hoary head. But I can see in a moment where I 
missed it. Another of the few errors of my life is that I have joined 
the Free Masons Odd Fellows Sons of Temperance, & a score of 
other secret societies instead of seeking the company of intelligent 



660 APPENDIX 

wise & good men from whom I might have learned much that would 
be interesting, instructive, & useful & have in that way squandered 
a great amount of most precious time, & money enough sometimes 
in a single year which if I had then put the same out on interest and 
kept it so would have kept me always above board given me char- 
acter, & influence amongst men, or have enabled me to pursue some 
respectable calling, so that I might employ others to their benefit & 
improvement, but as it is I have always been poor, in debt, & now 
obliged to travel about in search of employment as a hostler shoe- 
black & fiddler. But I retain all my quickness of perception I can see 
readily where I missed it. 

Chap 2d 
Sambos Mistakes. 

Another error of my riper years has been that when any meeting 
of colored people has been called in order to consider of any impor- 
tant matter of general interest I have been so eager to display my 
spouting talents & so tenacious of some trifiing theory or other that 
I have adopted that I have generally lost all sight of the business in 
hand consumed the time disputing about things of no moment & 
thereby defeated entirely many important measures calculated to 
promote the general welfare; but I am happy to say I can see in a 
minute where I missed it. Another small error of my life (for I never 
committed great blunders) has been that I never would (for the sake 
of union in the furtherance of the most vital interests of our race) 
yield any minor point of difference. In this way I have always had 
to act with but a few, or more frequently alone & could accomplish 
nothing worth living for, but I have one comfort, I can see in a 
minute where I missed it. Another little fault which I have com- 
mitted is that if in anything another man has failed of coming up to 
my standard, notwithstanding he might possess many of the most 
valuable traits & be most admirably adapted to fill some one impor- 
tant post, I would reject him entirely, injure his influence, oppose 
his measures, and even glory in his defeats while his intentions were 
good, & his plans well laid. But I have the great satisfaction of being 
able to say without fear of contradiction that I can see verry quick 
where / missed it. 

To be continued 

Chap 30 

Sambos Mistakes. 

Another small mistake which I have made is that I could never 
bring myself to practise any present self denial although my theories 
have been excellent. For instance I have bought expensive gay 
clothing, nice Canes, Watches, Safety Chains, Finger-rings, Breast 
Pins & many other things of a like nature, thinking I might by that 
means distinguish myself from the vulgar, as some of the better 
class of whites do. I have always been of the foremost in getting up 



APPENDIX 661 

expensive parties, & running after fashionable amusements, and have 
indulged my appetite freely whenever I had the means {& even with 
borro[w]ed means) have patronized the dealers in Nuts, Candy, etc., 
freely & have sometimes bought good suppers & was always a regu- 
lar customer at Livery stables. By these & many other means I have 
been unable to benefit my suffering Brethren, & am now but poorly 
able to keep my own Soul & boddy together; but do not think me 
thoughtless or dull of apprehention, for I can see at once where I 
missed it. 

Another trifling error of my life has been that I have always ex- 
pected to secure the favour of the whites by tamely submitting to 
every species of indignity contempt & wrong, insted of nobly resist- 
ing their brutual aggressions from principle & taking my place as a 
man & assuming the responsibilities of a man a citizen, a husband, a 
father, a brother, a neighbour, a friend as God required of every one 
(if his neighbour will allow him to do it;) but I find that I get for all 
my submission about the same reward that the Southern Slaveo- 
crats render to the Dough-faced Statesmen of the North for being 
bribed & browbeat, & fooled & cheated, as the Whigs & Democrats 
love to be, & think themselves highly honored if they may be al- 
lowed to lick up the spittle of a Southerner. I say I get the same 
reward. But I am uncomm[on] quick sighted I can see in a minute 
where I missed it. Another little blunder which I made is, that 
while I have always been a most zealous Abolitionist I have been 
constantly at war with my friends about certain religious tenets. I 
was first a Presbyterian, but I could never think of acting with my 
Quaker friends for they were the rankest heretiks & the Baptists 
would be in the water, & the Methodists denied the doctrine of 
Election, etc. & later years since becoming enlightened by Garrison, 
Abby Kelley and other really benevolent persons I have been spend- 
ing all my force on my friends who love the Sabbath, & have felt 
that all was at stake on that point just as it has proved to be of late 
in France in the abolition of Slavery in their colonies. Now I cannot 
doubt. Mess Editors, notwithstanding I have been unsuccessful, 
that you will allow me full credit for my peculiar quick-sightedness. 
I can see in one second where I missed it. 



B 

JOHN brown's covenant FOR THE ENLISTMENT OF HIS VOLUNTEER- 
REGULAR COMPANY. August, 1856 

Kansas Territory, a. d. 1856 

I. The Covenant. 

We whose names are found on these & the next following pages do 
hereby enlist ourselves to serve in the Free State cause under John 



662 APPENDIX 

Brown as commander during the full period of time affixed to our 
names respectively: and we severally pledge our word and sacred 
honor to said Commander; and to each other, that during the time 
for which we have enlisted we will faithfully and punctually perform 
our duty (in such capacity or place as may be assigned to us by a 
Majority of all the votes of those associated with us or of the com- 
panies to which we may belong as the case may be) as a regular vol- 
unteer force for the maintenance of the rights and liberties of the 
Free State citizens of Kansas: and we further agree that as individ- 
uals we will conform to the by Laws of this association & that we will 
insist on their regular and punctual enforcement as a first and last 
duty; and in short that we will observe and maintain a strict an[d] 
thorough military discipline at all times untill our term of service 
expires. 

Names, date of enlistment, and term of service on next Pages. 
Term of service omitted for want of room (principally for the War.) 

2. Names and date of enlistment. 

Aug. 22. Wm. Partridge (imprisoned), John Salathiel, S. Z. Brown, 
John Goodell, L. F. Parsons, N. B. Phelps, Wm. B. Harris. 

Aug. 23. Jason Brown (son of commander; imprisoned.) 

Aug. 24. J. Benjamin (imprisoned) 

Aug. 25. Cyrus Tator, R. Reynolds (imprisoned), Noah Fraze (ist 
Lieut.), Wm. Miller, John P. Glenn, Wm. Quick, M. D. Lane, 
Amos Alderman, August Bondie, Charles Kaiser (murdered Aug. 
30), Freeman Austin (aged 57 years), Samuel Hauser, John W. 
Foy, Jas. H. Holmes (Capt). 

Aug. 26. Geo. Partridge (killed Aug. 30), Wm. A. Sears. 

Aug. 27. S. H. Wright. 

Aug. 29. B. Darrach (Surgeon), Saml, Farrar. 

Sept. 8. Timothy Kelley, Jas. Andrews. 

Sept. 9. W. H. Leman, Charles Oliver, D. H. Hurd. 

Sept. 15. Wm. F. Harris. 

Sept. 16. Saml. Geer (Commissary). 

3. Bylaws of the Free-State regular Volunteers of Kansas enlisted 
under the command of John Brown. 

Article 1st. Those who agree to be governed by the following ar- 
ticles & whose names are appended will be known as the Kansas 
regulars. 

Article 2d. Every officer connected with this organization^ (except 
the Commander already named) shall be elected by a majority of 
the members if above a Captain; & if a Captain or under a Cap- 
tain, by a majority of the company to which they belong. 

Article 3d. All vacancies shall be filled by vote of the majority of 
members; or companies as the case may be: & all members shall 
be alike eligible to the highest office. 



APPENDIX 663 

Article 4th. All trials of officers or of privates for misconduct shall 
be by a jury of Twelve chosen by a majority of members of com- 
pany or companies as the case may be. each Company shall try 
its own members. 

Article 5th. AH valuable property taken by honorable warfare 
from the enemy, shall be held as the property of the whole com- 
pany or companies as the case may be equally, without distinc- 
tion ; to be used for the common benefit, or be placed in the hands 
of responsible agents for sale : the prxDceeds to be divided as nearly 
equally amongst the company or companies capturing it as may 
be. except that no person shall be entitled to any dividend from 
property taken * before he entered the service ; and any person 
guilty of desertion, or convicted of gross violations of his obliga- 
tions to those with whom he should act, whether officer or private, 
shall forfeit his interest in all dividends made after such miscon- 
duct has occurred. 

Article 6th. All property captured shall be delivered to the re- 
ceiver of the force or company, as the case may be; whose duty it 
shall be to make a full inventory of the same (assisted by such 
person, or persons as may be chosen for that purpose), a copy of 
which shall be made into the books of this organization and held 
subject to examination by any member, on all suitable occasions. 

Article 7th. The Receiver shall give his receipts in a book for that 
purpose for all moneys & other property of the Regulars placed in 
his hands and keep an inventory of the same and make copy as 
provided in Article VI. 

Article 8th. Captured articles when used for the benefit of the mem- 
bers shall be receipted for by the Commissary the same as moneyes 
placed in his hands, the receivers to hold said receipts. 

Article 9th. A disorderly retreat shall not be suffered at any time 
and every officer and private, be, and is by this article fully em- 
powered to prevent the same by force if need be, & any attempt 
at leaving the ground be and during a fight is hereby declared 
disorderly, unless the consent or direction of the officer then in 
command have authorized the same. 

Article loth. A disorderly attack or charge shall not be suffered at 
any time. 

Article nth. When in camp a thorough watch both regular and 
picket shall be maintained both by day and by night, and visitors 
shall not be suffered to pass or repass without leave from the 
Captain of the Guard and under common or ordinary circum- 
stances it is expected that the Officers will cheerfully share this 
service with the privates for examples sake. 

Article 12th. Keeping up fires or lights after dark, or firing of guns 
pistols or caps, or boisterous talking while in camp shall not be 
allowed except for fires and Hghts when unavoidable. 
* As far as the word "taken," the document is written in John Brown's hand, 

as is Article 23; the remainder is in another chirography. 



664 APPENDIX 

Article 13th. When in camp neither officers nor privates shall be 
allowed to leave without consent of the Officer then in command. 

Article 14th. All uncivil, ungentlemanly, profane, vulgar talk or 
conversation shall be discountenanced. 

Article 15th. All acts of petty theft needless waste of property of 
the members or of citizens is hereby declared disorderly, together 
with all uncivil and unkind treatment of citizens or of prisoners. 

Article i6th. In all cases of capturing property, a sufficient number 
of men shall be detailed to take charge of the same, all others 
shall keep in their position. 

Article 17th. It shall at all times be the duty of the Quarter master 
to select ground for encampment subject however to the appro- 
bation of the commanding officer. 

Article i8th. The Commissary shall give receipts in a book for 
that purpose, for all moneys provisions, and stores put into his 
hands. 

Article 19th. The Officers of Companies shall see that the arms of 
the same are in constant good order and a neglect of this duty shall 
be deemed disorderly. 

Article 20th. No person after having first surrendered himself a 
prisoner shall be put to death or subjected to corporeal punish- 
ment, without first having had the benefit of an impartial trial. 

Article 21st. A wagon master and an assistant shall be chosen for 
each Company whose duty it shall be to take a general oversight 
and care of the teams, wagons, harness and all other articles of 
property pertaining thereto: and who shall both be exempt from 
serving on guard. 

Article 22d. The ordinary use, or introduction into the camp of 
any intoxicating liquors, as a beverage: is hereby declared dis- 
orderly. 

Article 23d. A majority of Two thirds of all the Members may at 
any time alter or amend the foregoing articles. 

Most of John Brown's recruits had served with the Lawrence 
Stubbs, among them Luke F. Parsons. W. H. Leeman, whose name 
appears on the list, stuck to his new commander until his death at 
Harper's Ferry. 



JOHN brown's requisition UPON THE NATIONAL KANSAS COM- 
MITTEE FOR AN OUTFIT FOR HIS PROPOSED COMPANY. January, 1857 

"Memorandum of articles wanted as an Outfit for Fifty Volun- 
teers to serve under my direction during the Kansas war: or for such 
specified time as they may each enlist for : together with estimated 
cost of same delivered in Lawrence or Topeka." — John Brown 
MSS. Original in Kansas Historical Society. 



APPENDIX 665 

2 substantial (but not heavy) baggage Waggons 

with good covers $200.00 

4 good serviceable waggon Horses 400. 

2 sets strong plain Harness 50- 

100 good Heavy Blankets say @ 2. or 2.50 200. 

8 Substantial larg sized Tents 100. 

8 large Camp Kettles 12. 

50 Tin Basons 5- 

50 Iron Spoons 2. 

4 plain strong Saddles & Bridles 80. 

4 Picket Ropes & Pins 3. 

8 Wooden Pails 2. 

8 Axes & Helves 12. 

8 Frying Pans (large size) 8. 

8 Large sized Coffee Pots 10. 

8 do do Spiders or bake Ovens 10. 

8 do do Tin Pans 6. 

12 Spades & Shovels 18. 

6 Mattocks 6. 

2 Weeks provisions for Men & Horses .... 150. 

Fund for Horse hire & feed, loss & damage of same 500. 

$1774. 
D 

JOHN brown's peace AGREEMENT 

Peace Agreement drafted by John Brown and presented to the 
meeting at Sugar Mound, Linn County, Kansas, by Captain Mont- 
gomery for John Brown. — From the Lawrence Republican, Decem- 
ber 16, 1858. 

Agreement. 

The citizens of Linn County, assembled in mass meeting at 
Mound City, being greatly desirous of securing a permanent peace 
to the people of the Territory generally, and to those along the 
border of Missouri in particular, have this day entered into the fol- 
lowing agreement and understanding, for our future guidance and 
action, viz: 

Article i. All criminal processes, against any and all Free-State 
men, for any action of theirs previous to this date, growing out of 
difficulties heretofore existing between the Free-State and Pro- 
Slavery parties, shall be forever discontinued and quashed. 

Art. 2. All Free-State men held in confinement for any charges 
against them, on account of former difficulties, between the Free 
State and Pro-Slavery parties, to be immediately released and 
discharged. 



666 APPENDIX 

Art. 3. All Pro-Slavery men, known to have been actively and 
criminally engaged in the former political difficulties of the Terri- 
tory, and who have been forcibly expelled, shall be compelled to 
remain away, as a punishment for their oft repeated and aggravated 
crimes. 

Art. 4. No troops, marshal or other officers of the General Gov- 
ernment, shall be either sent or called in to enforce or serve criminal 
processes against any Free-State man or men, on account of troubles 
heretofore existing, for any act prior to this date. 

Art. 5. All parties shall hereafter in good faith discontinue, and 
thoroughly discountenance acts of robbery, theft or violence against 
others, on account of their political differences. 

The following recommendation was unanimously agreed to by 
the meeting: "That we earnestly recommend that all those who 
have recently taken money or other property from peaceable citizens 
within this county, immediately restore the same to their property 
owners." The meeting then adjourned peaceably. 

A variation of this agreement less offensive to the Pro-Slavery 
men than Articles 2 and 3 of the above form is also preserved; it was 
drawn late in December in order to obtain the signatures of men of 
all parties. It begins: "We the citizens of Kansas and Missouri," 
and bears date of January i. This will be found in William Hutchin- 
son's letter in the New York Times of January 18, 1859, from Maple- 
ton, Kansas, January 3. 

E 

SHUBEL morgan's COMPANY 

Articles of Agreement of Shubel Morgan's Company, drawn up in 
July, 1858, in Kagi's writing. — Original in Kansas Historical Society. 

We the undersigned, members of Shubel Morgan's Company, 
hereby agree to be governed by the following Rules: — 

I. A gentlemanly and respectful deportment shall at all times 
and places be maintained toward all persons; and all profane or 
indecent language shall be avoided in all cases. 

II. No intoxicating drinks shall be used as a beverage by any 
member, or be suffered in camp for such purpose. 

III. No member shall leave camp without leave of the com- 
mander. 

IV. All property captured in any manner shall be subjected to 
an equal distribution among the members. 

V. All acts of petty or other thefts shall be promptly and properly 
punished, and restitution made as far as possible. 

VI. All members shall, so far as able, contribute equally to all 
necessary labor in or out of camp. 



APPENDIX 



667 



VII. AH prisoners who shall properly demean themselves shall be 
treated with kindness and respect, and shall be punished for crime 
only after trial and conviction, being allowed a hearing m defence. 

VIII. Implicit obedience shall be yielded to all proper orders of 
the commander or other superior officers. 

IX. All arms, ammunition, etc., not strictly private property, 
shall ever be held subject to, and delivered up on, the order of the 
commander. 



Names 


Date, 1858 


Shubel Morgan 


July 12 


C. P. Tidd 






J. H. Kagi 






A. Wattles 






Saml Stevenson 






J. Montgomery 






T. Homyer 






Simon Snyder 




' 14 


E. W. Snyder 




\ \^ 


Ellas J. Snyder 






John H. Snyder 






Adam Bishop 






William Hairgrove 






John Mikel 






Wm. Partridge 







JOHN brown's wills 

While in the hospitable home of Judge Thomas Russell, 'near 
Boston, on April 13, 1858, John Brown signed a will, that he might 
duly protect those who had placed funds and other property m 
his possession for pardcular purposes. It is still preserved in the 
G. L. Stearns papers, and reads thus: 

"I, John Brown of North Elba, New York, intending to visit 
Kansas, and knowing the uncertainty of life, make my last will as 
follows: I give and bequeath all trust funds and personal property 
for the aid of the Free-State cause in Kansas now in my hands or m 
the hands of W. H. D. Callender of Hartford, Conn, to George L. 
Stearns of Medford, Mass., Samuel Cabot, Jr. of Boston, Mass. and 
William H Russell of New Haven, Conn., to them and the survivor 
or survivors, and their assigns forever, in trust that they will ad- 
minister said funds and other property including all now collected 
by me or in my behalf, for the aid of the free-state cause in Kansas, 
leaving the manner of so doing entirely to their discretion." 



668 APPENDIX 

Another will dated one day later, is also extant, in the papers of 
Judge Thomas Russell, Jamaica Plain, Mass. This is signed by but 
one witness, the one above cited having three. While differently 
phrased, the documents are alike in substance. 

Another will, written in prison on the day before his execution, 
was as follows : 

Chaelestown, Jefferson Co, Va. ist December 1859 

I give to my Son John Brown Jr my Surveyors Compass & other 
surveyors articles if found also my old Granite Monument now at 
North Elba, N. Y. to receive upon its Two sides a further inscrip- 
tion as I will hereafter direct. Said Stone monument however to 
remain at North Elba, so long as any of my children or my wife: may 
remain there; as residents. 

I give to my Son Jason Brown my Silver Watch with my name 
egraved on iner case. 

I give to my Son Owen Brown my double Spry or opera Glass 
& my Rifle Gun (if found) presented to me at Worcester Mass 
It is Globe sighted & new. I give also to the same Son Fifty Dollars 
in cash to be paid him from the proceeds of my Fathers Estate in 
consideration of his terible sufferings in Kansas: & his cripled condi- 
tion from his childhood. 

I give to my Son Salmon Brown Fifty Dollars in cash to be paid 
him from my Fathers Estate, as an offset to the first Two cases 
above named. 

I give to my Daughter Ruth Thompson my large old Bible con- 
taining family record. 

I give each of my sons and to each of my other daughters in Law; 
as good a coppy of the Bible as can be purchased at some Book store 
in New York or Boston at a cost of Five Dollars each ; in Cash to be 
paid out of the proceeds of my Fathers Estate. 

I give to each of my Grand Children that may be living when my 
Fathers Estate is settled : as good a copy of the Bible as can be pur- 
chased (as above) at a cost of $3, Three Dollars each 

All the Bibles to be purchased at one and the same time for Cash 
on best terms. 

I desire to have S50, Fifty Dollars each paid out of the final pro- 
ceeds of my Fathers Estate: to the following named persons. To wit 
to Allen Hammond, Esqr of Rockville Tolland Co, Connecticut, or 
to George Kellogg Esqr: former Agent of the New England Com- 
pany at that place: /or the use; & benefit of that Company. Also Fifty 
Dollars to Silas Havens formerly of Irvinsburg, Summit Co, Ohio, 
if he can be found. Also Fifty Dollars to a man formerly of Stark Co, 
Ohio, at Canton who sued my Father in his lifetime Through Judge 
Humphrey & Mr. Upson of Akron to be paid by J. R. Brown to 
the man in person if can be found His name I cannot remember 
My father made a compromise with the man by turning out House 
& Lot at Monroeville. I desire that any remaining balance that may 
become my due from my Fathers Estate may be paid in equal 



APPENDIX 669 

amounts to my Wife & to each of my Children ; & to the Widows of 
Watson & Oliver Brown by my brother Jeremiah R. Brown of Hud- 
son Ohio John Brown * 
Witnes 

John Avis 

Endorsed, 

" Copy to be sent to Jeremiah R. Brown." 

THE WILL OF DECEMBER 2, 1859 

[Will Book No. 16, Page 143, Jefferson Co. West Virginia Court Records, 
Charlestown.] 

John Brown's Will & Codicil 

I, John Brown, a prisoner now in the prison of Charlestown, 
Jefferson County, Virginia, do hereby make and ordain this as my 
true last Will and Testament. I will and direct that all my property, 
being personal property, which is scattered about in the States of 
Virginia and Maryland, should be carefully gathered up by my 
Executor hereinafter appointed and disposed of to the best advan- 
tage, and the proceeds thereof paid over to my beloved wife, Mary 
A. Brown. Many of these articles are not of a war like character, 
and I trust as to such and all other property that I may be entitled 
to that my rights and the rights of my family may be respected: 
And lastly, I hereby appoint Sherifif James W. Campbell, Executor 
of this my true last Will, hereby revoking all others. 

Witness my hand and seal this 2nd day of December 1859 

John Brown (Seal) 

Signed, sealed and declared to be 
the true last Will of John 
Brown, in our presence, who 
attested the same at his request, 
in his presence and in the presence of 
each other. 

John Avis 

Andrew Hunter 

Codicil. I wish my friends, James W. Campbell, Sherifif, and John 
Avis, Jailer, as a return for their kindness, each to have a Sharp-rifle 
of those belonging to me, or if no rifle can be had, then each a pistol. 

Witness my hand and seal this 2nd day of December 1859 

John Brown (Seal) 

Signed, sealed and declared to be 

a codicil to the last Will and testament 

of John Brown, in our presence, who attested 

the same at his request in his presence, and 

in the presence of each other. 

Andrew Hunter, 

John Avis. 

* Every word of this, except Avis's signature, in John Brown's own hand. 



670 APPENDIX 

Virginia, Jefferson County, Scr.; In the County Court, Deer. Term, 1859. 

At a Court held for the said County on the 19th day of December, 1859, the 
foregoing last Will and Testament and Codicil thereto, of John Brown deceased, 
approved in open Court by the oaths of John Avis, and Andrew Hunter sub- 
scribing witnesses thereto, and ordered to be recorded. 

Teste T. A. Moore, Clerk. 



G 

JOHN AVIS'S AFFIDAVIT AS TO HIS ASSOCIATION WITH JOHN BROWN 

(From Original owned by Rev. Abner C. Hopkins, D. D., Charlestown, W. Va.) 

I, John Avis, a Justice of the Peace of the County of Jefferson, 
State of West Virginia, under oath do solemnly declare that I was 
Deputy Sheriff and Jailor of Jefferson County, Virginia, in 1859 
during the whole time that Captain John Brown was in prison & on 
trial for his conduct in what is familiarly known as the Harper's 
Ferry Raid ; that I was with him daily during the whole period ; that 
the personal relations between him and me were of the most pleasant 
character; that Sheriff James W. Campbell & I escorted him from 
his cell the morning of his execution one on either side of him ; that 
Sheriff Campbell & I rode with Captain Brown in a wagon from 
the jail to the scaffold one on either side ; that I heard every word that 
Captain Brown spoke from the time he left the jail till his death; 
that Sheriff Campbell (now deceased) and I were the only persons 
with him on the scaffold. 

I have this day read, in the early part of chapter 8 of a book 
styled 'The Manliness of Christ,' by Thomas Hughes, Q. C, New 
York: American Book Exchange, Tribune Building, 1880, the fol- 
lowing paragraph, to wit: — 

"Now I freely admit that there is no recorded end of a life that I 
know of more entirely brave and manly than the one of Captain 
John Brown, of which we know every minutest detail, as it hap- 
pened in the full glare of our northern life not twenty years ago. 
About that I think there could scarcely be disagreement anywhere. 
The very men who allowed him to lie in his bloody clothes till the 
day of his execution, & then hanged him, recognize this. 'You are a 
game man, Capt. Brown,' the Southern Sheriff said in the wagon. 
' Yes,' he answered, ' I was so brought up. It was one of my Mother's 
lessons. From infancy I have not suffered from physical fear. I have 
suffered a thousand times more from bashfulness ; ' and then he 
kissed a negro child in its mother's arms, and walked cheerfully on 
to the scaffold, thankful that he was 'allowed to die for a cause and 
not merely to pay the debt of nature as all must.' " 

Respecting the statements contained in the above paragraph 
quoted from the book above mentioned, I solemnly declare: — 

First, that Captain John Brown was not "allowed to lie in his 



APPENDIX 671 

bloody clothes till the day of his execution," but that he was fur- 
nished with a change of clothing as promptly as prisoners in such 
condition usually are; that he was allowed all the clothing he desired ; 
and that his washing was done at his will without any cost to himself. 
As an officer charged with his custody, I saw that he was at all times 
& by all persons treated kindly, properly and respectfully. I have 
no recollection that there was ever any attempt made to humiliate 
or maltreat him. Captain Brown took many occasions to thank me 
for my kindness to him and spoke of it to many persons including 
his wife. In further proof of the kindness he received at my hands I 
will state that Captain Brown in his last written will & testament 
bequeathed to me his Sharpe's Rifle and a pistol. Furthermore, on 
the night before the execution Captain Brown and his wife, upon 
my invitation, took supper with me and my family at our table in 
our residence which was a part of the jail building. 

2. I have no recollection that the Sheriff said to Captain Brown, 
"You are a game man," and received the reply quoted in the above 
paragraph, or that any similar remarks were made by either parties. 
I am sure that neither these remarks nor any like them were made 
at the time. The only remarks made by Captain Brown between 
his cell and the scaffold were commonplace remarks about the 
beauty of the country and the weather. 

3. The statement that "he kissed a negro child in his mother's 
arms" is wholly incorrect. Nothing of the sort occurred. Nothing 
of the sort could have occurred, for his hands, as usual in such cases, 
were confined behind him before he left the jail; he was between 
Sheriff Campbell and me, and a guard of soldiers surrounded him, 
and allowed no person to come between them and the prisoner, 
from the jail to the scaffold, except his escorts. 

4. Respecting the statement that he "walked cheerfully to the 
scaffold," I will say that I did not think his bearing on the scaffold 
was conspicuous for its heroism, yet not cowardly. 

5. Whether he was "thankful that he was allowed to die for a 
cause and not merely to pay the debt of nature as all must," or not, 
I cannot say what was in his heart; but if this clause means, as the 
quotation marks would indicate, that Captain Brown used any such 
language or said anything on the subject, it is entirely incorrect. 
Captain Brown said nothing like it. The only thing that he did say 
at or on the scaffold was to take leave of us & then just about the 
time the noose was adjusted he said to me: "Be quick." 

(Signed) John Avis 
Charlestown, West Virginia, 
April 25, 1882. 

State of West Virginia, County of Jefferson ss: 

I, Cleon Moore, a notary public in and for the County of Jefferson, State afore- 
said, hereby certify that John Avis whose name is signed to the foregoing affidavit 
this day personally appeared before me in my county aforesaid and made oath 
that the statements contained in said affidavit are true to the best of his know- 
ledge and belief. 



672 



APPENDIX 



Given under my hand and notarial seal at Charlestown, West Virginia, this 
25th day of April, 1882. 

Cleon Moore 
Notary Public 

H 



A CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN BROWN S MOVEMENTS, FROM HIS DE- 
PARTURE FOR KANSAS TO HIS DEATH, DECEMBER 2, 1 859 

1855 

August 13. Left North Elba with Henry Thompson for 

Kansas. 
15. At Akron, Ohio. 
At Hudson, Ohio. 

18. At Cleveland, Ohio. >- 

19. At Detroit. 

20. Arrived at Chicago. 

23. Left Chicago for Kansas with his one-horse 
wagon, and en route to Osawatomie until Oc- 
tober 6. 
October 7. Arrived at Osawatomie and the Brown claims. 

December 6. Left Osawatomie for the defence of Lawrence. 

7-12. At Lawrence. 

14. At the Brown claims near Osawatomie. 

1856 

January i. At West Point, Missouri. 

4. Back at Osawatomie. 

Returned to Missouri for provisions. 
Returned to Osawatomie from a third trip to 
Missouri. 

15. In Osawatomie and vicinity. 

16. Attended Osawatomie settlers' meeting to re- 
solve against the "bogus law" taxes. 

21. Attended Judge Cato's court near Lane. 

22. Left Osawatomie for relief of Lawrence. 

23. Left camp of Pottawatomie Rifles and camped 
one mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing. 

24. In camp all day; Pottawatomie killings at night. 

25. About noon left camp, rejoining John Brown, 
Jr., at Ottawa Jones's, near midnight. 

26. Left the Pottawatomie Rifles and spent night 
at Jason Brown's cabin. 

27-31. In a secluded camp on Ottawa Creek. 

1. Moved to Prairie City; searched till late for 
Pate's command. 

2. Battle of Black Jack. 



7 and 8. 
31- 



Feb. i-April 
April 

May 



June 



APPENDIX 



673 



June 



3-4- 
5- 



Junes-July i. 

July 2. 

3- 
4. 

4-22. 

23- 
August 3-4- 

7- 
9- 

10. 
10-16. 

17- 

20. 
24. 

25- 
26. 

27. 

28. 
29. 
30. 
August 31 

-September 6. 

September 7. 

8-14. 

15-22. 

October i . 



10. 

18. 

25-26. 

27. 



Encamped with prisoners at Middle Ottawa 
Creek. 

Brown's men disbanded by Colonel E. V. Sum- 
ner, First U. S. Cavalry, Major Sedgwick, 
Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart. 

Hidden in thickets of Middle Ottawa Creek in 
vicinity of Palmyra. 

At Lawrence; camping at night one mile south- 
west of Big Springs. 

Arrived in the early morning on outskirts of 
Topeka. 

In camp on Willets farm, on Shunganung Creek 
near Topeka. 

Whereabouts unknown. 

Probably left Topeka for Nebraska. 

Met S. J. Reeder on his way to Nemaha Falls, 
N. T. 

At Nemaha Falls. 

Left Nebraska City. 

Arrived at Topeka. 

Whereabouts in doubt. 

At Lawrence on arrival of Walker's prisoners 
from Fort Titus. 

(About) Reached Osawatomie. 

Brown's and Cline's companies in camp at Sugar 
Creek, Linn County. 

Searched for a pro-slavery force. 

Encounter with Cline's company ; raid on Captain 
J. E. Brown. 

Raiding. 

Returned to Osawatomie with 150 head of cattle. 

Moved his camp one mile from Osawatomie. 

Battle of Osawatomie. 

In camp at Hauser farm, two and one-half miles 
from Osawatomie. 

Arrived in Lawrence with Luke F. Parsons. 

In Lawrence. 

At Augustus Wattles's home near Lawrence, 
"with his sons and sons' wives." 

At Osawatomie, according to his letter of Octo- 
ber II, 1856. 

Narrowly escaped capture by Lieut. -Colonel 
Cooke near Nebraska City. 

At Tabor, Iowa. 

(About) Left Tabor by stage for Chicago. 

At Chicago. 

(About) Started back to Tabor in pursuit of his 
sons Salmon and Watson. 



674 APPENDIX 

December i. Again in Chicago; left soon to visit Ohio relatives; 

then went to Albany, Rochester and Peter- 
bo ro. 
27. At Frederick Douglass's in Rochester. 



January 



4-22. 
23-26. 



January 27 

-February 16. 

February 16-18. 

19. 

March i. 

4- 

6. 

9-1 1. 

12. 

13- 

19. 

21-26. 

26-28. 

30. 
Mar. 3 1 -April 2. 
April 6-15. 

16-20. 
23. 

25- 
27. 
28. 
12. 

13- 
14. 

15- 
21. 
22. 

23- 
May 27-June 12. 
June 16. 

22. 

24. 

29. 



April 30-M ay 
May 



1857 

At Boston. 

In New York at meeting of National Kansas 

Committee. 
Visited Rochester, Peterboro and North Elba, 

and returned to Boston. 
Boston. 

Springfield, Mass. 
Collinsville, Conn.; first meeting with Blair to 

contract for pikes. 
Brown's Appeal to Friends of Freedom appeared 

in New York Tribune. 
At Hartford, Conn., and Springfield, Mass. 
Canton and Collinsville, Conn. 
Passed this night with R. W. Emerson at Con- 
cord. 
At Medford with George L. Stearns and family. 
At New Haven, Conn. 

At Worcester (also brief trip to Springfield). 
Visiting ex-Governor Reeder at Easton, Pa., 

with Sanborn and Conway. 
Contracted with Blair at Collinsville for pikes. 
At Springfield, Mass. 
In Boston and West Newton; visiting Judge and 

Mrs. Russell. 
In Springfield and vicinity. 
In New Haven, Conn. 
In Springfield, Mass. 
In Troy, New York. 
In Albany, New York. 
At North Elba. 

Left Vergennes, Vermont, for Kansas. 
At Canastota, New York. 
At Peterboro, New York. 
At Wayne, Ohio. 
At Cleveland, Ohio. 
At Akron, Ohio. 

At Hudson, Ohio; disabled by sickness. 
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 
Parted from Gerrit Smith in Chicago. 
At Tallmadge, Ohio. 
Left Cleveland for Iowa. 



APPENDIX 



675 



July 

July 7-Aug. 
Aug. 7-N0V. 
November 



-6. Iowa City. 
6. Crossing Iowa. 

1. At Tabor. 

2. Left Tabor, parting from Forbes at Nebraska 
City. 

5. Arrived at Whitman's farm near Lawrence. 

6. In consultation with Cook. 

14-16. At Topeka, with Cook, Realf, Parsons, and Ste- 
vens. 

17. Left Topeka. 

18. En route to Nebraska City. 

22. (About) Arrived at Tabor, Iowa. 
December 4. Left Tabor for Springdale. 

25. Passed Marengo, Iowa. 
28 or 29. Arrived at Springdale. 

1858 

Left Springdale for East. 

At Lindenville, Ohio. 

At Frederick Douglass's in Rochester. 

At Peterboro. 

With Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Gloucester at Brooklyn. 

At Boston. 

Left Boston for Philadelphia. 

At Philadelphia. 

At New Haven, Conn. 

Left New Haven for New York. 

Arrived at North Elba. 

At North Elba. 
At Peterboro. 

Left Peterboro for Rochester. 

At Rochester. 

At St. Catherine's, Canada. 

In Canada West. 

At St. Catherine's. 

At Ingersoll, Canada West. 

In Canada West. 

Passed through Chicago; arrived in Springdale. 

At Springdale. 

Left Springdale at 11.45 A. M. 

Arrived at Chicago. 

Reached Detroit and Chatham, Canada, 

At Chatham. 

Two conventions met. 

Left Chatham. 
, Arrived at Boston. 

At Boston. 



January 15. 

21. 
Jan. 28-Feb. 17. 
February 18-24. 
Feb. 26-Mar. 3- 
March 4-7- 

8. 
9-16. 

18. 

19. 

23- 

Mar. 23-April I. 

April 2. 

3- 

4-7. 

8-12. 

13. 

14. 

16. 

17-24. 

25- 

26. 

27. 

28. 

29. 
April 3(>-May 29. 
May 8 and 9. 

29 

31 
June 1-3 



676 



APPENDIX 



June 







5- 






20. 






22. 






26. 




27 


-28. 
28. 


July 




I. 
9. 


August 




23. 
3-9- 

15. 


September 
October 




23- 

7- 
II. 




15 


-16. 


22- 

Oct. 30-Nov. 
November. 


-25. 
I. 


December 




13. 
I. 



January 



3- 
5- 
6. 

16. 

16-18. 

20. 

21. 

22. 

22-30. 

30-31- 



Left Boston for Kansas, via North Elba and 
Ohio. 

(About) At North Elba. 

Left Cleveland with Tidd and Kagi. 

At Chicago. 

Reached Lawrence, Kansas. 

At Lawrence. 

Left Lawrence for southern Kansas. 

On the Snyder Claim for a four weeks' stay. 

Visited James Montgomery's cabin. 

Ill of ague. 

At Augustus Wattles's home near Moneka, 
Kansas. 

(About) Taken to Rev. Mr. Adair's, at Osawa- 
tomie, ill of fever. 

In Lawrence. 

At Ottumwa, Kansas. 

At Osawatomie. ' 

At Lawrence. 

At Osawatomie. 

At Augustus Wattles's. 

Building the Montgomery fort during this month. 

Marched with Montgomery to Paris, Kansas. 

Left Snyder Claim with George Gill for Osawat- 
omie. 

Attempt of Captain Weaver and Sheriff Mc Dan- 
iel to capture Brown at Snyder Claim; the 
latter arrived at Osawatomie. 

At Osawatomie. 

Returned to Montgomery's fort with George Gill. 

Drafted agreement presented to peace meeting 
at Sugar Mound by Montgomery. 

At Sugar Creek during Montgomery's attack on 
Fort Scott. 

At Wimsett Farm of Jeremiah G. Anderson's 

brother. 
The raid into Missouri. 

Camped all day in a deep ravine. 

Reached Augustus Wattles's house. 

At Wattles's or in the neighborhood, ready to 

repel invasion from Missouri. 
At Wattles's with William Hutchinson. 

1859 

Went into camp on Turkey Creek. 
Wrote Montgomery asking him to be ready to 
fight. 



APPENDIX 



677 



January 



February 



7- 

8. 

10-20. 

20. 

24. 

25- 
28. 
29. 
30. 

31- 
I. 

4- 

5-1 1- 

II. 

12. 

13- 
14. 

15- 
16. 

17- 
18. 
19. 
20. 
21-22. 
24. 
25- 
9- 
9- 
10. 
II. 
12. 



12-14. 

15-24. 

25- 
26. 

27. 
28. 

7- 
10. 

II-I3- 

14. 

16. 

April 19-May 5. 



Feb. 25-Mar. 
March 



April 



(About) Visited by George A. Crawford, agent 
for the Governor and President Buchanan. 

Wrote his " Parallels" at Augustus Wattles's. 

Left Wattles's for the last time. 

At Osawatomie. 

With George Gill left Garnett, Kansas, for Law- 
rence, with the fugitive slaves. 

Reached Major J. B. Abbott's, near Lawrence. 

Left Lawrence going North with the slaves. 

At Holton. 

At Straight or Spring Creek. 

Resting at Spring Creek. 

"Battle of the Spurs;" reached Sabetha. 

Brown's last day in Kansas. Crossed Nemeha 
River; entered Nebraska. 

Crossed the Missouri River at Nebraska City. 

At Tabor. 

Left Tabor to cross Iowa. 

At Toole's. 

At Lewis Mills's house. 

At Porter's Tavern, Grove City. 

At Dalmanutha. 

At Mr. Murray's, Aurora. 

At Mr. James J. Jordan's. 

Passed through Des Moines; at Mr. Hawley's. 

At Dickerson's. 

Reached Grinnell. 

At Grinnell. 

Passed through Iowa City. 

Arrived at Springdale. 

At Springdale. 

Left Springdale for West Liberty. 

Left West Liberty by train for Chicago. 

Arrived at Chicago. 

Arrived at Detroit; saw his slaves ferried over 
to Windsor. 

At Detroit. 

At Cleveland. 

In Ashtabula Co., Ohio. 

At Jefiferson, Ohio. 

Lectured at Jefferson, Ohio. 

At Cleveland. 

At Kingsville, Ohio, 

At Rochester. 

At Peterboro. 

Left Peterboro for North Elba. 

At Westport, New York. 

At North Elba. 



678 



APPENDIX 



May 7. 

8. 

9- 

May lO-June 2. 

June 3- 

4- 

5-6. 

7- 

9- 

10. 

16. 

18. 

19. 

23- 

23-27. 

27-28. 

30. 

July 3- 

12. 

August 16-21. 

September 27. 
30. 

October i . 

8. 

16. 

17. 

18. 
19. 

25- 
November 2. 
December 2. 



With F. B. Sanborn at Concord. 

Spoke in Concord Town Hall. 

At Concord and Boston. 

At Boston. 

Left Boston; arrived in Collinsville, Conn. 

Reached New York. 

In New York. 

At Troy. 

At Keene, New York. 

At Westport. 

(Probably) Left North Elba for last time. 

At West Andover, Ohio. 

Left West Andover. 

Akron, Ohio, and Pittsburg, Pa. 

Bedford Springs, Bedford Co., Pa. 

At Chambersburg. 

Left Chambersburg; spent night at Hagerstown, 

Md. 
At Sandy Hook, Md. (Harper's Ferry). 
(About) Moved to Kennedy Farm. 
At Chambersburg with Frederick Douglass. 
At Chambersburg, en route to Philadelphia. 
On his way back through Harrisburg. 
At Chambersburg. 
At Chambersburg. 
(Sunday) Raid began. 
In battle at Harper's Ferry. 
Captured at daybreak. 
Taken to Charlestown jail. 
Trial begun. 
Sentenced. 
Executed. 



JOHN BROWN S MEN-AT-ARMS 

John Brown's band consisted of twenty-one men besides himself, 
sixteen of whom were white and five colored. Most of the whites he 
commissioned as officers in his army; according to the best obtain- 
able printed list, Stevens, Cook, Brown's three sons, — Oliver, 
Owen and Watson, — and Tidd were captains. But this is incom- 
plete. There is conflicting testimony as to whether Hazlett was a 
captain or a lieutenant. Cook states that only two lieutenants were 
commissioned, Edwin Coppoc and Dauphin Thompson. Colonel 
Lee in his official report rates Hazlett, Edwin Coppoc, and Leeman 
as lieutenants. A captain's commission was found on Leeman's 



APPENDIX 679 

body. Probably William Thompson and J. G. Anderson were also 
captains. The white private soldiers were Stewart Taylor, Barclay 
Coppoc, and F. J. Meriam. The colored were Shields Green, Lewis 
Sheridan Lcary, John A. Copeland, Jr., Osborn Perry Anderson, 
and Dangcrficld Newby. The eldest of the band after Brown was 
Newby, aged forty-four; Owen Brown came next, at thirty-five; all 
the others were under thirty. Oliver Brown, Barclay Coppoc, and 
Leeman were not yet twenty-one. The average age of the twenty- 
one followers was twenty-five years and five months. Only one was 
of foreign birth ; nearly all were of old American stock. Sketches of 
their lives follow. 

John Henry Kagi was the best educated of all the raiders, but was 
largely self-taught. Many admirably written letters survive as the 
productions of his pen, in the New York Tribune, the New York 
Evening Post, and the National Era. He was, moreover, an able man 
of business, besides being an excellent debater and speaker. He was 
an expert stenographer and a total abstainer. His father was the 
respected village blacksmith in Bristolville, Ohio, whose family was 
of Swiss descent, the name being originally Kagy. John A. Kagi 
was born at Bristolville, March 15, 1835; and was killed October 
17, 1859. In 1854-55 he taught school at Hawkinstown, Virginia, 
where he obtained a personal knowledge of slavery. This resulted 
in such abolition manifestations on his part, that he was compelled 
to leave for Ohio under a pledge never to return to Hawkinstown. 
Kagi then went to Nebraska City, Nebraska, where he was ad- 
mitted to the bar. He next entered Kansas with one of General 
James H. Lane's parties. He enlisted in A. D. Stevens's ("Colonel 
Whipple's") Second Kansas Militia, and was captured in 1856 by 
United States troops. Kagi was imprisoned first at Lecompton and 
then at Tecumseh, but was finally liberated. He was assaulted and 
severely injured by Judge Elmore, the pro-slavery judge, who struck 
him over the head with a gold-headed cane, on January 31, 1857. 
Kagi drew his revolver and shot the Judge in the groin. Elmore 
then fired three times and shot Kagi over the heart, the bullet being 
stopped by a memorandum-book. Kagi was long in recovering from 
his wounds. After a visit to his Ohio home he returned to Kansas 
and joined John Brown. When in Chambersburg as agent for the 
raiders, he boarded with Mrs. Mary Rittner. 

Aaron Divight Stevens, in many ways the most interesting and 
attractive of the personalities gathered around him by John Brown, 
ran away from home at the age of sixteen, in 1847, and enlisted in a 
Massachusetts volunteer regiment, in which he served in Mexico 
during the Mexican War. Later, he enlisted in Company F of the 
First United States Dragoons, and was tried for "mutiny, engaging 
in a drunken riot, and assaulting Major George A. H. Blake of his 
regiment," at Taos, New Mexico, in May, 1855. Stevens was sen- 



680 APPENDIX 

tenced to death, but this was commuted by President Pierce to im- 
prisonment for three years at hard labor at Fort Leavenworth, 
from which post he escaped and joined the Free State forces. In 
these he became colonel of the Second Kansas Militia, under the 
name of Whipple. Thereafter his story is so intertwined with that 
of John Brown as to need no retelling here. Stevens came of old 
Puritan stock, his great-grandfather having been a captain in the 
Revolutionary army. He was a man of superb bravery and of won- 
derful physique; he was well over six feet, was blessed with a great 
sense of humor, and was sustained at the end by his belief in spiritu- 
alism. George B. Gill wrote of him in i860: "Stevens — how glori- 
ously he sang! His was the noblest soul I ever knew. Though owing 
to his rash, hasty way, I often found occasion to quarrel with him, 
more so than with any of the others, and though I liked Kagi better 
than any man I ever knew, our temperaments being adapted to each 
other, yet I can truly say that Stevens was the most noble man that 
I ever knew." George H. Hoyt, Brown's counsel, in a letter to J. W. 
Le Barnes, October 31, 1859, thus recorded his first impression of 
Stevens at Harper's Ferry: "Stevens is in the same cell with Brown. 
I have frequent talks with him. He 's in a most pitiable condition 
physically, his wounds being of the most painful and dangerous 
character. He has now four balls in his body, two of these being 
about the head and neck. He bears his sufferings with grim and silent 
fortitude, never complaining and absolutely without hope. He is a 
splendid looking young fellow. Such black and penetrating eyes! 
Such an expansive brow ! Such a grand chest and limbs ! He was the 
best, and in fact the only man Brown had who was a good soldier, 
besides being reliable otherwise." Stevens was executed March 16, 
i860. 

John E. Cook, who could successfully have escaped had he not, 
against the advice of his comrades, been reckless in his search for 
food, was born in the summer of 1830, in Haddam, Connecticut. He 
was of a well-to-do family, and studied law in Brooklyn and New 
York. He went to Kansas in 1855. His movements from the time of 
his first meeting with Brown, just after the battle of Black Jack, in 
June, 1856, until after his capture, are set forth in his "Confession" 
made while in jail (published at Charlestown as a pamphlet in the 
middle of November, 1859, for the benefit of Samuel C. Young, 
who was crippled for life in the fighting at Harper's Ferry). For 
this confession Cook was severely censured at the time by the friends 
of Brown; he was even called the "Judas" of the raid. But the 
document, when examined to-day, obviously contains only facts 
which are of great historical value, and whose promulgation at the 
time in no wise injured the case of his fellow raiders. Had it not 
been made, the result of the trial would have been the same. Cook 
preceded John Brown to the Harper's Ferry neighborhood by more 
than a year, there sometimes teaching school, and again living as 



APPENDIX 68i 

a lock-tender, while in the registration of his marriage to Mary V. 
Kennedy, of Harper's Ferry, April i8, 1859, he was described as a 
book-agent. He was captured eight miles from Chambcrsburg, 
Pennsylvania, October 25, 1859, and hanged on December 16. He 
was a remarkably fine shot, and had seen much fighting in Kansas. 
He was reckless, impulsive, indiscreet, but genial, generous and 
brave. 

Charles Plummer Tidd, known as Charles Plummer, died of fever, 
on the transport Northerner, as a first sergeant of the Twenty-first 
Massachusetts Volunteers, on February 8, 1862, with the roar of 
the battle of Roanoke Island in his ears. This he had particularly 
wished to take part in, for ex-Governor Henry A. Wise was in com- 
mand of the Confederates, his son, O. Jennings Wise, being killed 
in the engagement. Tidd had enlisted July 19, 1861, as a private. 
He was born in Palermo, Maine, in 1834, and changed his name 
after the raid in order to avoid possible arrest and trial as a Har- 
per's Ferry raider — a precaution of greater importance when he 
entered the army. He emigrated to Kansas with the party of Dr. 
Calvin Cutter, of Worcester, in 1856. He joined John Brown's party 
at Tabor, in 1 857 , and thereafter, in Canada and elsewhere, was one of 
Brown's closest associates, returning to Kansas in 1858 as a follower 
of "Shubel Morgan." He took part in the raid into Missouri. After 
his escape from Virginia, he visited Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, and Canada, and was freely consulted in the plans for rescue 
of Stevens and Hazlett. "Tidd," writes Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, 
"had not much education, but good common sense. After the raid 
he began to study, and tried to repair his deficiencies. He was by 
no means handsome. He had a quick temper, but was kind-hearted. 
His rages soon passed and then he tried all he could to repair dam- 
ages. He was a fine singer and of strong family affections." His 
grave is No. 40 in the New Berne, N. C, National Cemetery. 

Jeremiah Goldsmith Anderson was born April 17, 1833, in Indiana, 
and was therefore in his twenty-seventh year when killed at Harper's 
Ferry. He was the son of John Anderson, and was the grandson of 
slaveholders; his maternal grandfather, Colonel Jacob Westfall, 
of Tygert Valley, Virginia, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War; 
he went to school at Galesburg, Illinois, and Kossuth, Iowa; was 
a peddler, farmer, and employee of a saw-mill, before emigrating to 
Kansas in August, 1857, where he settled on the Little Osage, Bour- 
bon County, a mile from Fort Bain. He was twice arrested by pro- 
slaveryites, and for ten weeks imprisoned at Fort Scott; he then 
became a lieutenant of Captain Montgomery, and was with him 
in the attack on Captain Anderson's troop of the First U. S. Cavalry. 
He also witnessed the murder on his own doorstep of a Mr. Denton 
by Border Rufhans. He was with John Brown on the slave raid 
into Missouri, and thereafter followed Brown's fortunes. Writing 



682 APPENDIX 

July 5, 1859, of his determination to continue to fight for freedom, 
he said: "Millions of fellow-beings require it of us; their cries for 
help go out to the universe daily and hourly. Whose duty is it to 
help them? Is it yours? Is it mine? It is every man's, but how few 
there are to help. But there are a few who dare to answer this call, 
and dare to answer it in a manner that will make this land of liberty 
and equality shake to the centre." 

Albert Hazlett was born in Pennsylvania, September 21, 1837, 
and was executed March 16, i860. George B. Gill says: "I was 
acquainted with Hazlett well enough in Kansas, yet after all knew 
but little of him. He was with Montgomery considerably, and was 
with Stevens on the raid in which Cruise was killed. He was a good- 
sized, fine-looking fellow, overflowing with good nature and social 
feelings. . . . Brown got acquainted with him just before leaving 
Kansas." Before the raid he worked on his brother's farm in west- 
ern Pennsylvania, joining the others at Kennedy Farm in the early 
part of September, 1859. To Mrs. Rebecca Spring he wrote on 
March 15, i860, the eve of his execution, "Your letter gave me great 
comfort to know that my body would be taken from this land of 
chains. ... I am willing to die in the cause of liberty, if I had 
ten thousand lives I would willingly lay them all down for the same 
cause." He was arrested in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, under the name 
of William Harrison, on October 22, extradited to Virginia, tried 
and sentenced at the spring term of the Court, and hanged on 
March 16, i860. 

Edwin Coppoc, brother of Barclay, was captured with Brown 
in the engine house, tried immediately after him, sentenced on 
November 2, and hung with Cook on December 16, 1859. The 
father of the Coppocs died when Edwin was six, the latter having 
been born June 30, 1835. For nine years thereafter Edwin lived 
with John Butler, a farmer, near Salem, Ohio, removing then with 
his mother to Springdale, Iowa. This place he left in the spring of 
1858, to become a settler in Kansas. He took no part in the Terri- 
torial troubles, and returned to Springdale in the autumn of 1858, 
when he became acquainted with Brown. He always bore an ex- 
cellent reputation as an honest, brave, straightforward, well-be- 
haved man, and his death was particularly lamented by many 
friends. An exemplary prisoner, there were many Southerners who 
hoped for his pardon. He was buried first in Winona [later in Salem, 
Ohio], after a public funeral, attended by the entire town. In jail 
he regretted his situation, wrote his mother of his sorrow that he 
must die a dishonorable death, and explained that he had not un- 
derstood what the full consequences of the raid would be. He died 
with absolute fortitude. 

Barclay Coppoc was born at Salem, Ohio, January 4, 1839, and 



APPENDIX 683 

had not attained his majority at the time of the raid. He escaped 
from Harper's Ferry, but only to meet a tragic fate in that he was 
killed by the fall of a train into the Platte River from a trestle forty 
feet high, the supports of which had been burned away by Con- 
federates. Coppoc was then a first lieutenant in the Third Kansas 
Infantry, Colonel Montgomery's regiment, having received his 
commission July 24, 1861. Barclay Coppoc went straight to Iowa 
after his escape from Harper's Ferry, whither Virginia agents fol- 
lowed to attempt his arrest. He went back to Kansas in i860, 
helped to run off some Missouri slaves, and nearly lost his life in a 
second undertaking of this kind. The accident which ended his life 
took place at night; he survived his injuries until the next day, 
September 3, 1861. He was buried at Leavenworth, Kansas. He 
was in Kansas for a time in the fall of 1856. 

William Thompson, son of Roswell Thompson, was born in Au- 
gust, 1833, and was killed October 17, 1859. He married Mary Ann 
Brown, a neighbor, but no relation of the Brown family. He had 
no hesitation as to where his duty lay when the call came to help 
free the slaves. He started for Kansas in 1856, but turned back on 
meeting the Brown sons, who returned to North Elba in the fall of 
that year. He was full of fun and good nature, and bore himself un- 
flinchingly when face to face with death. Both William Thompson 
and his brother Dauphin went to Harper's Ferry without being 
urged and purely from a sense of right and duty to a great 
cause. 

Dauphin Osgood Thompson, brother of William and also a neigh- 
bor of the Browns at North Elba, was born April 17, 1838, and was 
killed in the engine house on October 18, 1859. He was the brother 
of William Thompson, who also fell, and of Henry Thompson. Their 
sister Isabella married Watson Brown. Dauphin Thompson was a 
handsome, inexperienced, country boy, " more like a girl than a war- 
rior," and "diffident and quiet." 

Oliver Brown, the youngest son of John Brown to reach manhood, 
was born March 9, 1839, at Franklin, Ohio. Hewent to Kansas in 1855 
with his father, returning to North Elba in October, 1856. For a time 
in 1857 he was at work in Connecticut. He married Martha E. Brew- 
ster, April 7, 1858, when but nineteen years old, and died at Harper's 
Ferry, October 18, 1859, in his twenty-first year. His girl-wife and 
her baby died early in i860. "Oliver developed rather slowly," says 
Miss Sarah Brown. " In his earlier teens he was always pre-occupied, 
absent-minded, — always reading, and then it was impossible to 
catch his attention. But in his last few years he came out very fast. 
His awkwardness left him. He read every solid book that he could 
find, and was especially fond of Theodore Parker's writings, as was 
his father. Had Oliver lived, and not killed himself by over-study, 



684 APPENDIX 

he would have made his mark. By his exertions the sale of liquor 
was stopped at North Elba." 

John Anthony Copeland, Jr., a free colored man, was born at 
Raleigh, North Carolina, August 15, 1834, and executed at Charles- 
town, December 16, 1859. His parents removed to Oberlin, Ohio, in 
1842. He was for some time a student in the preparatory depart- 
ment of Oberlin College, and was enlisted for John Brown in Septem- 
ber, 1859, by Lewis Sheridan Leary, his uncle, who was at that time 
also residing at Oberlin. He was one of the thirty-seven men con- 
cerned in the famous Oberlin rescue of a fugitive slave, John Price, 
for which he was for some time imprisoned at Cleveland. "Cope- 
land," Judge Parker stated in his story of the trials (St. Louis Globe 
Democrat, April 8, 1888), "was the prisoner who impressed me best. 
He was a free negro. He had been educated, and there was a dignity 
about him that I could not help liking. He was always manly." 
Andrew Hunter at the same time was quoted as saying: "Cope- 
land was the cleverest of all the prisoners . . . and behaved better 
than any of them. If I had had the power and could have concluded 
to pardon any man among them, he was the man I would have 
picked out." On November 26, from his cell in Charlestown, Cope- 
land sent a letter to his parents, now in the possession of his sister, 
Miss Mary Copeland, of Oberlin, Ohio, of which the following is an 
extract : 

"Dear Parents, — my fate as far as man can seal it is sealed, 
but let this not occassion you any misery for remember the cause in 
which I was engaged, remember that it was a 'Holy Cause,' one in 
which men who in every point of vew better than I am have suffered 
and died, remember that if I must die I die in trying to liberate a 
few of my poor and oppress people from my condition of serveatud 
which God in his Holy Writ has hurled his most bitter denunciations 
against and in which men who were by the color of their faces re- 
moved from the direct injurious affect, have already lost their lives 
and still more remain to meet the same fate which has been by man 
decided that I must meet." 

Stewart Taylor, the only one of the raiders not of American birth, 
was but twenty-three when killed, having been born October 29, 
1836, at Uxbridge, Canada. Of American descent, and a wagon- 
maker by trade, he went to Iowa in 1853, where in 1858 he became 
acquainted with John Brown through George B. Gill. He is described 
as being "heart and soul in the anti-slavery cause. An excellent 
debater and very fond of studying history. He stayed at home, in 
Canada, for the winter of 1858-59, and then went to Chicago, thence 
to Bloomington, Illinois, and thence to Harper's Ferry. He was a 
very good phonographer [stenographer], rapid and accurate. He 
was overcome with distress when, getting out of communication 
with the John Brown movement, he thought for a time that he was 



APPENDIX 685 

to be left out." — Letter of Jacob L. Taylor, Pine Orchard, Canada 
West, April 23, i860, to Richard J. Hinton, — in Hinton Papers, 
Kansas Historical Society. Taylor was a spiritualist. 

William H. Leeman, born March 20, 1839, and killed on October 
I7> 1859. the youngest of the raiders, had early left home, being of a 
rather wild disposition. Owen Brown found him hard to control at 
Springdale. Mrs. Annie Brown Adams writes of him: "He was only 
a boy. He smoked a good deal and drank sometimes; but perhaps 
people would not think that so very wicked now. He was very hand- 
some and very attractive." Educated in the public schools of Saco 
and Hallowell, Maine, he worked in a shoe-factory in Haverhill, 
Massachusetts, at the age of fourteen. In 1856 he entered Kansas 
with the second Massachusetts colony of that year, and became a 
member of John Brown's "Volunteer Regulars" September 9, 1856. 
He fought well at Osawatomie, when but seventeen years old. 
George B. Gill says of him that he had "a good intellect with great 
ingenuity." 

Oshorn Perry Anderson, colored, survived the raid to die of con- 
sumption at Washington, D. C., December 13, 1872. Born July 27, 
1830, at West Fallowfield, Pennsylvania, he was in his thirtieth year 
at the time of the raid, of which and of his escape he left a record in 
'A Voice from Harper's Ferry,' which contains, however, many 
erroneous statements. He learned the printing trade in Canada, 
where he met John Brown in 1858. After his escape he returned to 
Canada. During the Civil War, in 1864, he enlisted, became a non- 
commissioned officer, and was mustered out at the close of the war 
in Washington. 

Francis Jackson Meriam was born November 17, 1837, at Fram- 
ingham, Massachusetts, and died suddenly November 28, 1865, in 
New York City, after having served in the army as a captain in the 
Third South Carolina Colored Infantry. Erratic and unbalanced, 
he was forever urging wild schemes upon his superiors, and often 
attempting them. In an engagement under Grant he was severely 
wounded in the leg. Early in the war he married Minerva Caldwell, 
of Galena, Illinois. He was in Boston, coming from Canada, on the 
day of John Brown's execution, but was finally induced by friends to 
go back to Canada. Mr. Sanborn has characterized Meriam as of 
"little judgment and in feeble health," but "generous, brave and 
devoted." 

Lewis Sheridan Leary, colored, left a wife and a six months old 
child at Oberlin, to go to Harper's Ferry. The latter was subse- 
quently educated by James Redpath and Wendell Phillips; the 
widow, now Mrs. Mary Leary Langston, is still a resident of Law- 
rence, Kansas. Leary was descended from an Irishman, Jeremiah 



686 APPENDIX 

O'Leary, who fought in the Revolution under General Nathanael 
Greene, and married a woman of mixed blood, partly negro, partly 
of that Croatan Indian stock of North Carolina, which is be- 
lieved by some to be lineally descended from the " lost colonists " 
left by John White on Roanoke Island in 1587. Leary, like his 
father, was a saddler and harness-maker. In 1857 he went to Oberlin 
to live, marrying there, and making the acquaintance of John Brown 
in Cleveland. He survived his terrible wounds for eight hours, dur- 
ing which he was well treated and able to send messages to his 
family. He is reported as saying: "I am ready to die." His wife was 
in ignorance of his object when he left home. Leary was born at 
Fayetteville, North Carolina, March 17, 1835, and was therefore 
in his twenty-fifth year when killed. 

Owen Brown,horn November 4, 1824, at Hudson, Ohio, was John 
Brown's third son, and his stalwart, reliable lieutenant both in 
Kansas and at Harper's Ferry. It was due largely to his unfaltering 
determination and great physical strength that the little group of 
sur\ivors of which he was the leader reached safe havens. After the 
war he was for some time a grape-grower in Ohio, in association with 
two of his brothers. Thence he removed to California, where he 
died, January 9, 1891, in his mountain home, "Brown's Peak," 
near Pasadena, poor in worldly goods, but with the resfJect and re- 
gard of his neighbors. A marble monument marks his mountain-side 
grave. He never married. He was, like all the Browns, original 
in expression and in thought, and not without considerable humor. 
He was the only one of the five men who escaped from the raid 
who did not enter the Union army, and he was the last of the raiders 
to die. 

Watson Brown, born at Franklin, Ohio, October 7, 1835, married 
Isabella M. Thompson in September, 1856, and died of his wounds 
at Harper's Ferry on October 18, 1859. He was: "Tall and rather 
fair, with finely knit frame, athletic and active." Of little education, 
he was a man of marked ability and sterling character, who bore 
well the family responsibilities which fell to him when all the other 
men of the clan went to Kansas. His son lived only to his fifth 
year; his widow later married her husband's cousin, Salmon Brown. 

Dangerfield Newby, colored, was born a slave in 1815, in Fauquier 
County, Virginia. His father, a Scotchman, freed his mulatto chil- 
dren. Newby's wife, from whom he received the touching letters 
given in the text, was the slave of Jesse Jennings, of Warington, Vir- 
ginia. She and her children were "sold South" after the raid, but it 
is said that she subsequently lived in Ohio. The shot that gave to 
Newby his death-wound cut his throat from ear to ear, the missile 
being a six-inch spike in lieu of a bullet. Newby was six feet two 
inches tall, a splendid physical specimen, of light color. 



APPENDIX 687 

Shields Green, colored, otherwise known as " Emperor," was born a 
slave. After the death of his wife, he escaped on a saihng vessel from 
Charleston, South Carolina, leaving a little son in slavery. He event- 
ually found his way to Rochester, New York, three years after his 
escape and after a sojourn in Canada. Here he became acquainted 
with Frederick Douglass, and through him with John Brown, and 
here he lived as a servant and a clothes-cleaner. He went with 
Douglass to Chambersburg to meet John Brown, and went on with 
Brown when Douglass turned back. Several reliable prisoners in the 
engine house testified to Shields Green's cowardice during the fight. 
He endeavored to avoid arrest by palming himself off as one of the 
slaves impressed by Brown. O. P. Anderson, however, speaks of 
Green's bravery, and declares that Green could have escaped with 
him, but that the former slave protested that he would go back "to 
de ole man," even if there was no chance of escape. Owen Brown 
had a poor opinion of Green's staunchness, after his experience in 
bringing him down from Chambersburg to the Kennedy Farm. 
Green's age is said to have been twenty-three years. He was a full- 
blooded negro. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS 

The Kansas State Historical Society Archives contain one volume of letters 
and manuscripts written by John Brown or members of his family. They contain 
also a large set of scrap-books devoted exclusively to John Brown history, and 
a bequest of the late Col. R. J. Hinton comprises a mass of letters and other 
manuscript material collected by him when writing his 'John Brown and His 
Men.' The manuscript executive minutes of the early governors of Kansas, and 
vast masses of manuscript papers of many Kansas pioneers, make them a prime 
field of interest for any student of John Brown. 

In the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is the Dreer Manuscript Collection, 
containing letters and papers of Brown and letters and official documents written 
by and sent to the Virginia authorities at the time of the raid, as well as a volume 
of the correspondence of President Buchanan. Most of the matter relating to the 
raid was taken from the State House at Richmond and brought North by Fed- 
eral soldiers and by Dreer himself. In the collection of Mr. Edwin Tatham of 
New York City are similar letters and documents which supplement the Dreer 
collection in a remarkable way. His valuable possessions also bear upon the 
relation of the State of Virginia to the raid. 

Two volumes of John Brown's diaries or note-books, the gift of the late Wendell 
Phillips Garrison, are in the Boston Public Library, which also owns the priceless 
Thomas Wentworth Higginson Collection of manuscripts and letters written 
by John Brown and his New England allies concerning his enterprises. The 
Public Library at Torrington, Connecticut, the Public Library at Omaha, 
Nebraska, in its Byron Reed collection of manuscripts, Oberlin College, Ohio, and 
Haverford College, Pennsylvania, are also possessors of Brown documents. 
No student of John Brown's life can afford to overlook the collections of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, particularly the John Brown papers of the 
late A. A. Lawrence, or the papers of the late George L. Stearns, some of which 
are owned by the Kansas Historical Society and some in the possession of the 
Stearns family, who also own John Brown's autobiography. As will be seen from 
the Notes, many indispensable letters are in the possession of the various mem- 
bers of the Brown family. In the author's collection are a number of the James 
H. Holmes papers relating to John Brown, and many valuable papers of the late 
Col. R. J. Hinton regarding John Brown and Richard Realf. The original Mason 
Report papers and correspondence are in the Senate archives. 

II. BIOGRAPHIES 

(Chronologically arranged) 

Redpath, James. — The Public Life of Captain John Brown. — Boston: Thayer 

and Eldridge. i860. Pp. 408. 
Webb, Richard D. — Life and Letters of Captain John Brown. — London: 

Smith Elder & Co. 1861. Pp. 453. 
Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin. — The Life and Letters of John Brown. — 

Boston: Roberts Bros. 1885. Pp. 645. 



690 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

HiNTON, Richard J. — John Brown and his Men. With some Account of the 
Roads they Travelled to Reach Harper's Ferry. — New York: Funk & Wag- 
nails Co. 1894. Pp. 752. 

Chamberlin, Joseph Edgar. — John Brown. — Boston: Small, Maynard & 
Company. 1899. Pp. 138. 

CoNNELLEY, WiLLiAM Elsey. — John Brown. — Topeka, Kansas: Crane & 
Company. 1900. Pp. 426. 

Newton, John. — Captain John Brown of Harper's Ferry. — London: T. 
Fisher Unwin. 1902. Pp. 288. 

Du Bois, W. E. B. — John Brown. — Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Com- 
pany. 1909. Pp. 406. 

ViLLARD, Oswald Garrison. — John Brown, 1800-1859. A Biography Fifty 
Years After. — Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1910. 
Pp. 738. 

III. MAGAZINE AND OTHER ARTICLES 

Adams, S. H. — John Brown. Tabor, Iowa, College Monthly. May, 1894. 

Allaben, a. E. — John Brown as a Popular Hero. Magazine of Western 
History. November, 1893. 

Appleton, W. S. — John Brown and the Destruction of Slavery. Massachu- 
setts Historical Society Proceedings. Second Series, vol. 14. 1901. 

Atkinson, Eleanor. — The Soul of John Brown. American Magazine. 
October, 1909. 

Bacon, Leonard, D. D. — The Moral of Harper's Ferry. The New Englander. 
November, 1859. 

Bacon, Leonard Woolsey. — John Brown. New Englander and Yale Re- 
view. April, 1886. (Review of Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown.) 

Baumgartner, J. Hampton. — Fifty Years after John Brown. Book of the 
Royal Blue. Published by the Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., Baltimore. De- 
cember, 1909. 

Beale, James. — A Famous War Song. Paper read before the United Service 
Club, Philadelphia. Printed by the Author. (No date.) 

Betz, L H. — An Hour with John Brown. The Pennsylvania German. Octo- 
ber, 1909. 

Boteler, Alexander R. — Recollections of the John Brown Raid, with com- 
ment by F. B. Sanborn. The Century. July, 1883. 

Bowman, George E. — Peter Browne's Children. The Mayflower Descendant. 
January, 1902. 

The Settlement of Peter Browne's Estate. The Mayflower Descend- 
ant, January, 1903. 

Brown. — The John Brown Letters: Found in the Virginia State Library in 
1901. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vols. 9-1 1. 1901-1903. 

Brown's Fugitives, John. — Anonymous article in Springfield Republican. 
June 12, 1909. 

Brown, Owen. — A Letter. Atlantic Monthly. July, 1874. 

Butler, Mrs. E. S. — A Woman's Recollections of John Brown's Stay in Spring- 
dale. Midland Monthly. November, 1898. 

Chambers, Jennie. — What a School-Girl saw of John Brown's Raid. Harper's 
Monthly. January, 1902. 

Chapin, Lou V. — The Last Days of Old John Brown. Overland Monthly. 
April, 1899. 



"BIBLIOGRAPHY 691 

Clemens, Will M."— John Brown, the American Reformer. Peterson Maga- 
zine. January-August, 1898. 

Cooke, G. VV. — Brown and Garrison. The American, vol. 11. October, 1885- 
April, 1886. [Philadelphia]. 

Coppoc, Edwin. — [Article on; anonymous] Iowa Historical Records. April, 

1895. 

Coppoc, Rev. J. L. — John Brown and His Cause. Midland Monthly. Sep- 
tember, 1895. 

CoTTERELL, George. — Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown. Brown s 
Character Estimated. The Academy, London. February 20, 1886. 

CouRTENAY, AusTEN M. — The Actual John Brown. Chautauquan. January, 

1897. 
Daingerfield, John E. P. — John Brown at Harper's Ferry. The Century. 

June, 1885. 

Dana, Richard Henry, Jr. — How We Met John Brown. Atlantic Monthly. 
July, 1871. 

Day, W. G. — John Brown's Invasion of Virginia. Southern Magazme. 
October, 1873. 

Emery, Ina Capitola. — The Hero of Harper's Ferry. Nickell Magazme. 
June, 1897. 

Erb, Edward. — An Abolitionist. Pittsburg Post. May 28, 1899. 

EwiNG, Thomas. — The Struggle for Freedom in Kansas. Cosmopolitan 
Magazine. May, 1894. 

"F., M. H." — The Wife of Capt. John Brown of Osawatomie; a Brave Life. 
Overland Monthly. October, 1885. 

Featherstonhaugh, Thomas, M. D. — A Bibliography of John Brown. — Balti- 
more: The Friedenwald Company. 1897. Pp. 9- Reprint from Publications 
of the Southern History Association. July, 1897. 

John Brown's Men . . . with a Supplementary Bibliography of John 

Brown. — Harrisburg, Pa.: Harrisburg Publishing Company. 1899. Pp. 28. 
Reprinted from Publications of Southern History Association. October, 1899. 

The Final Burial of the Followers of John Brown. New England 

Magazine. April, 1901. 

Fellows, Col. William. — Saw John Brown Hanged. New York Sun. Feb- 
ruary 13, 1898. 

Fleming, Walter L. — The Buford Expedition to Kansas. American His- 
torical Review. October, 1900. 

FORSTER, W. E. — Harper's Ferry and "Old Captain Brown." Macmillan's- 
February, i860. 

Green, Israel. — The Capture of John Brown. North American Review. 
December, 1885. 

Griffis, Rev. William Eliot. —Refutation of Several Romances about the 
Execution of John Brown. Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 13. Rich- 
mond, 1885. 

GuE, B. F. — John Brown and his Iowa Friends. Midland Monthly. February 
and March, 1897. 

Hadley, Daniel B.'— Reminiscences of John Brown. McClure's. January, 1898. 

Halstead, Murat. — The Tragedy of John Brown. The Independent. De- 
cember I, 1898. 

Hamilton, James Cleland. — John Brown in Canada. Canadian Magazine. 
December, 1894. 

Harris, Ransom Langdon. — John Brown and His Followers in Iowa. Mid- 
land Monthly. October, 1894. 



692 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Hassard, J. R. G. — The Apology for John Brown. Catholic World. January, 

1886. 
Hawes, Alexander G. — In Kansas with John Brown. The Californian. July, 

1881. 
Hill, Frederick Trevor. — Decisive Battles of the Law; The Commonwealth 

vs. John Brown. Harper's Monthly. July, 1906. 
HiNTON, Richard J. — John Brown and His Men. Frank Leslie's Popular 

Magazine. June, 1889. 
Old John Brown and the Men of Harper's Ferry. Time [London]. 

July, 1890. 
HuHNER, Leon. — Some Jewish Associates of John Brown. Magazine of His- 
tory. September and October, 1908. 
Hunter, Andrew. — John Brown's Raid. New Orleans Times-Democrat. Sep- 
tember 5, 1887. 
John Brown's Raid. Southern History Association Publications, vol. 

I. 1897. 
Ingalls, John J. — John Brown's Place in History. North American Review. 

February, 1894. 
Isely, W. H. — The Sharp's Rifle Episode in Kansas. American Historical 

Review. April, 1907. 
Joyce, Burr. — John Brown's Raids. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. April 15, 

1888. 
Keeler, Ralph. — Owen Brown's Escape from Harper's Ferry, Atlantic 

Monthly. March, 1874. 
Keim, a. R. — John Brown in Richardson County [Nebraska]. — Nebraska 

State Historical Society Transactions, vol. 2. 1887. 
Keith, John. — John Brown as a Poet. Magazine of Western History. May, 

1889. 
Kimball, George. — Origin of the John Brown Song. New England Maga- 
zine. New Series, vol. i. December, 1889. 
Lamberton, John Porter. — John Brown. — Lippincott's. 1888. 
Lampson, E. C. — The Black-String Bands. Cleveland Plain-Dealer. October 

8, 1899. 
Law'rence, Samuel. — Three Letters. . . . L John Brown. Old Residents' 

Historical Association, vol. I. Lowell, Massachusetts. 1873. 
Lee, Francis W. — Letter, giving history of inscription on boulder on the North 

Elba Farm. Garden and Forest. March 11, 1896. 
Leech, Rev. S. V. — The Raid of John Brown into Virginia. The Athenaeum 

of West Virginia University. April 14, 1900. 
Lewis, Walter. Life of Capt. John Brown. The Academy [London]. February 

20, 1886. 
Lloyd, Frederick. — John Brown among the Pedee Quakers. Annals State 

Historical Society, Iowa, vol. 4. April-October, 1866. 
McClellan, Katherine Elizabeth. — A Hero's Grave in the Adirondacks. — 

Saranac Lake, New York: Published by the Author. 1896. Pp. 20. 
McKim, J. Miller. — Mrs. Brown and Her Family. National Anti-Slavery 

Standard. December 3, 1859. 
MacLean, J. P., Ph. D. — The Shaker Community of Warren County. Ohio 

Archaeological and Historical Society Publications, vol. 10. Columbus. 1901. 
Marshall, G. A. — Another John Brown Song. The Independent. July 21, 

1910. 
[The] Mock Auction. — Hudibras Redivivus. A Review of Osawattomie Sold. 

A Satire. Southern Literary Messenger. June, i860. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 693 

Morse, J. T., Jr. — Review of F. B. Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown. 

Atlantic Monthly. February, 1886. 
Morse, Sidney H. — Editorial Commemoration of the 9th Anniversary of 

Brown's Execution. The Radical. December, 1868. 
Nichols, May E. — John Brown and His Adirondack Grave and Home. 

National Magazine. July, 1903. 
Norton, C. E. — Review of Rcdpath's "Public Life of Captain John Brown." 

Atlantic Monthly. March, i860. 
Parker, Judge Richard. — John Brown's Trial. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 

April 8, 1888. 
Phillips, William A. — Three Interviews with John Brown. Atlantic 

Monthly. December, 1879. 
Lights and Shadows of Kansas History. Magazine of Western His- 
tory. May, 1890. 
PoiNDEXTER, P. — The Capture and Execution of John Brown. Lippincott's. 

January, 1889. 
Robinson's "The Kansas Conflict." Reviewed in the Nation, June 30, 1892. 
Rockwell, Joel Clark. — How I Captured John Brown. (A grossly erroneous 

narrative.) Independent. Vol. 62. 
RosENGARTEN, J. G. — John Brown's Raid. Atlantic Monthly. June, 1865. 
Sanborn, F. B. — John Brown in Massachusetts. Atlantic Monthly. April, 1872. 

John Brown and His Friends. Atlantic Monthly. July, 1872. 

The Virginia Campaign of John Brown. Atlantic Monthly. December, 

1875- 

A Concord Note Book. The Critic. October, 1895. 

New Hampshire Biography and Autobiography. — Concord, New 

Hampshire. July, 1905- 

Gerrit Smith and John Brown. The Critic. October, 1905. 

The Real John Brown. Sunday Magazine. July 29, 1906. 

The Early History of Kansas, 1854-1861. Proceedings of Massachu- 
setts Historical Society. February, 1907- 

Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown. Reviewed in the Nation, October 
15, 1885; in The Dial, October, 1885; in the (London) Academy, February 20, 
1886; in the Atlantic Monthly, February, 1886. 

Scott, Mary A. — Across Country in a Van. Midland Monthly. March, 1897. 

Shackleton, Robert, Jr. — John Brown's Raid and its Localities. National 
Magazine. April, 1893. 

What Support did John Brown Rely Upon? Magazine of American 

History. April, 1893. 

Shaw, Albert. — John Brown in the Adirondacks. Review of Reviews. Septem- 
ber, 1896. 

Sheldon, Charles M. — God's Angry Men. (Poem.) The Independent. 

July 21, 1910. 
Shoup, Samantha Whipple. — The John Brown Song. The Independent. 

July 21, 1910. 
Small, Charles H. — The Last Letter of John Brown. New England Magazine. 

July, 1899. 
Smith, Narcissa Macy. — Reminiscences of John Brown. Midland Monthly. 

September, 1895. , ^ 

Spring, Leverett W. — John Brown at Dutch Henry's Crossing. Lippincott s. 

January, 1883. 
Catching Old John Brown. Overland Monthly. June, 1883. 



694 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Spring, Leverett W. — John Brown and the Destruction of Slavery. Proceed- 
ings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. March, 1900. 

Stearns, Frank P. — John Brown and his Eastern Friends. New England 
Magazine. July, 1910. 

Stimson, John Ward. — An Overlooked American Shelley [Richard Realf]. The 
Arena. July, 1903. 

Thayer, William [Hardy]. — The Black Strings of 1859. Weekly Indiana State 
Journal. August 23, 1893. [Interview.] 

Todd, J. E. — John Brown's Last Visitto Tabor. Annalsof Iowa. April-July, 1898. 

Utter, David N. — John Brown of Osawattomie. North American Review. 
November, 1883. 

Review of Sanborn's Life of John Brown. The Dial. October, 1885. 

Vallandigham, E. N. — John Brown — Modern Hebrew Prophet. Putnam's 
Magazine. December, 1909. 

Van Rensselaer, M. G. — Protest against erecting a Monument on the Adiron- 
dack Farm. Garden and Forest. January 29, 1896. 

ViLLARD, Oswald Garrison. — How Patrick Higgins met John Brown. Harper's 
Weekly. June 26, 1909. 

Washington, B. C. — The Trial of John Brown. The Green Bag. April, 1899. 

Wayland, John W. — One of John Brown's Men [John H. Kagi]. The Pennsyl- 
vania German. October, 1909. 

Weeks, Stephen B., Ph. D. — The Lost Colony of Roanoke: its Fate and Sur- 
vival. [In relation to L. S. Leary]. Papers of the American Historical Society. 
October, 1891. 

Wells, John D. — The Scars of War in the Shenandoah. Metropolitan Maga- 
zine. August, 1898. 

Williams, Harold Parker. — Brookline in the Anti-Slavery Movement. Brook- 
line Historical Society Publications, no. II. 1900. 

WiLLSON, Seelye a. — Owen Brown's Escape from Harper's Ferry. Magazine 
of Western History. February, 1889. 

WiTHERELL, L. R. — Old John Brown. A series of articles in the Davenport 
(Iowa) Gazette of February and March, 1878. 

Wright, Harry Andrew. — John Brown in Springfield. New England Maga- 
zine. May, 1894. 

Wright, General Marcus J. — The Trial and Execution of John Brown. Papers 
of the American Historical Association. October, 1890. 

The Trial of John Brown, its Impartiality and Decorum Vin- 
dicated. Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 16. 

Young, George W. — Story of John Brown's Capture. [An interview.] The 

Confederate Veteran. February, 1907. 
Young, Rev. Joshua, D. D. — The Funeral of John Brown. New England 

Magazine. April, 1904. 
X. V. B. — John Brown at Akron. Kansas Magazine. Topeka. October, 1873. 



IV. AUTHORITIES ON THE KANSAS PERIOD 

Adams, F. G., Letter-book of . MSS. In Kansas State Historical Society Library. 

Andreas, A. T. — History of the State of Kansas. — Chicago. 1883. Pp. 1616. 

Atchison, D. R., Russell, William H., Anderson, Jos. C, Boone, A. G., String- 
fellow, B. F., Buford, J. — The Voice of Kansas. Let the South Respond. 
De Bow's Commercial Review. August, 1856. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 695 

Bailey. Judge L. D. — Border Ruffian Troubles in Kansas. Some Newspaper 
Articles written for the Garden City Sentinel and Kansas Cultivator. . . . 
Edited by Charles R. Green. — Lyndon, Kansas. July, 1899. Pp. loi. 

Blackmar, Frank W. — Charles Robinson. The First Free-State Governor of 
Kansas. — Topeka: Crane & Co. 1900. Pp. 115. 

Brewerton, G. Douglas. — The War in Kansas. — New York: Derby and 
Jackson. 1856. Pp. 400. 

Briggs, C. W. — The Reign of Terror in Kansas. — Boston. 1856. 

Brown, G. W. — The Rescue of Kansas from Slavery, with False Claims Cor- 
rected. — Rockford, 111.: The Author. 1902. Pp.160. 

Reminiscences of Old John Brown. . . . — Rockford, 111.: Abraham 

E. Smith. 1880. Pp. 80. 

Reminiscences of Gov. R. J. Walker. — Rockford, 111. : Printed and Pub- 
lished by the Author. 1902. Pp. 204. 

Brown, Spencer Kellogg. — His Life in Kansas and his Death as a Spy, 1842- 
1863, as disclosed in his diary. Edited by George Gardner Smith. — New York: 
D. Appleton & Co. 1903. Pp. 380. 

Colt, Mrs. Miriam Davis. — Went to Kansas. . . . — Watertown: L. Ingalls 
& Co. 1862. Pp. 294. 

Connelley, William Elsey. — An Appeal to the Record. — Topeka, Kansas: 
Published by the author. Pp. 130. 

James Henry Lane. — Topeka: Crane & Company. 1899. Pp. 126. 

Cordley, Rev. Richard, D. D. — History of Lawrence, Kansas. — Lawrence, 
Kansas: E. F. Caldwell. 1895. Pp- 269. 

Doy, John, of Lawrence, Kansas, Narrative of. — New York: Thomas 
Halman. i860. Pp. 132. 

Elliott, R. G. — Foot-Notes on Kansas History. — Lawrence, Kansas. 1906. 
Pp. 30. Pamphlet. 

Gihon, John H. — Geary and Kansas. — Phila.: J. H. C. Whiting. 1857. Pp.348. 

Gladstone, Thomas H. — Kansas; or Squatter Life and Border Warfare in the 
Far West. — London: G. Routledge «& Co. 1857. Pp. 295. 

GoODLANDER, C. W. — Memoirs and Recollections of the Early Days of Fort 
Scott. — Fort Scott, Kansas. 1899. Pp. 79. 

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. — A Ride Through Kansas. — Pamphlet pri- 
vately printed. 1857. Pp. 24. 

Holloway, J. N. — History of Kansas. . . . — Lafayette, Ind.: James, Emmons 
& Co. 1868. Pp. 584. 

Howard Report. — Report of the Special Committee appointed to Investigate 
the Troubles in Kansas. . . . — 34th Congress, 1st Session. Report No. 200. — 
Washington: Cornelius Wendell. 1856. Pp. 1206. 

Hughes, Thomas. — A Sketch of the History of the United States, by J. M. 
Ludlow, to which is added "The Struggle for Kansas," by Thomas Hughes. — 
London: Macmillan & Co. 1862. Pp. 404. 

Johnson, Oliver. — The Abolitionists Vindicated, in a Review of Eli Thayer's 
Paper on the N. E. Emigrant Aid Company. — Worcester: F. P. Rice. 1887, 

Johnson, W. A. — History of Anderson County, Kansas. — Garnett, Kansas: 
Kauffman & Her. 1877. Pp. 289. 

Kansas. — Report of Commissioners of Kansas Territory. Printed in Reports of 
Committees of House of Representatives, 36th Congress, 2d session. Part I, 
vols. 2 and 3. — March 2, 1861. Washington, 1861. 

Kansas. — [An] Illustrated Historical Atlas of Miami County, Kansas. — Phila- 
delphia: Edwards Brothers. 1878. Pp. 60. 



696 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Kansas. — History of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. ... — Bos- 
ton: John Wilson and Son. 1862. Pp. 33. 

Kansas. — The Kansas Memorial. . . . Charles S. Gleed, Editor. — Kansas 
City, Mo.: Ramsey, Millett & Hudson. 1880. Pp. 261. 

Kansas. — Kansas State Historical Society Publications and Collections. 10 vols. 

Kansas. Minutes of the Big Springs Convention. No place. 1855. 

Kansas. — The Statutes of the Territory of Kansas. . . . — Shawnee M. L. 
School, Kansas: John T. Brady, Public Printer. 1855. Pp. 1509. 

Kansas. — U. S. Biographical Dictionary, Kansas Volume. — Chicago and Kan- 
sas City: S. Lewis & Co. 1879. Pp. 883. 

Kansas State Papers. — Executive Papers, 1 855-1 859. — Kansas State His- 
torical Society Archives. MSS. 

Records of the Adjutant-General. State House, Topeka. 

Martin, George W. — The First Two Years of Kansas. ... — Topeka, Kan- 
sas: State Printing Office. 1907. Pp. 30. 

Missouri. — History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri. (No author.) — 
St. Louis: National Historical Company. 1885. Pp. 1121. 

Paxton, W. M. — Annals of Platte County, Missouri. — Kansas City, Mo,: 
Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Company. 1897. Pp. 1182. 

Phillips, William A. — The Conquest of Kansas by Missouri and Her Allies.— 
Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1856. Pp. 414. 

Reese, Louis A. — History of the Admission of Kansas as a State. MSS. 

Robinson, Charles. — The Kansas Conflict. — Lawrence, Kansas: Journal 
Publishing Company. 1898. Pp. 487. 

Robinson, Sara T. L. — Kansas: its Interior and Exterior Life. ... — Boston: 
Crosby, Nichols and Company. 1856. Pp. 366. 

RoBLEY, T. F. History of Bourbon County, Kansas, to the Close of 1865. Fort 
Scott, Kansas: Published by the Author. 1894. Pp. 210. 

Ropes, Hannah Anderson. — Six Months in Kansas, by a Lady. — Boston : 
John P. Jewett & Co. 1856. Pp. 231. 

Smith, Samuel C. — Kansas and the Emigrant Aid Co.; Reply to "T. W. H." 
in Boston Advertiser. 1903. Pp. 35. 

Speer, John. — Life of Gen. James H. Lane. — Garden City, Kansas: John 
Speer, Printer. 1897. Pp. 352. 

Perversions of History. — Archives of the Kansas Historical Society. 

MSS. 

Spring, Leverett W. — Kansas, The Prelude to the War for the Union. — 
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company. 1885. Pp. 334. 

Sumner, Charles. The Crime against Kansas. Speech in the Senate of the 
United States, May 19-20, 1856. Washington: Buell & Blanchard. 1856. Pp. 32. 

Thayer, Eli. — A History of the Kansas Crusade. ... — New York: Harper 
& Brother. 1889. Pp. 294. 

Three Years on the Kansas Border, by a Clergyman. — New York and 
Auburn: Milleu^Orton & Mulligan. 1856. Pp. 240. 

Tomlinson, William P. — Kansas in Eighteen Fifty-Eight. — New York: H. 
Dayton. 1859. Pp. 304. 

TuTTLE, Charles R, — History of Kansas. — Madison, Wisconsin, and Law- 
rence, Kansas: Interstate Book Company. 1876. Pp. 708. 

War, Secretary of. — Official Report for 1856. Exec. Doc. No. i, 34th Con- 
gress, 3d Session, House of Representatives. 

Webb, Thomas H. — Information for Kansas Immigrants. — Boston: Alfred 
Mudge. 1855. Pp. 24. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 697 

Webb, Thomas H. — Scrap-Books of Kansas happenings. In Kansas His- 
torical Society Library. 

Wilder, Daniel W. — The Annals of Kansas. — Topeka, Kansas: George W. 
Martin. 1875. Pp. 691. 

Williams, R. H. — With the Border Rufhans . . . edited by E. W. Williams. — 
New York: E. P. Button & Company. 1907. Pp. 478. 

Wilson, Henry. — State of Affairs in Kansas. Speech of Henry Wilson in the 
Senate February 18, 1856. Washington: Republican Association of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 1856. Pp. 15. 

WiNKLEY, J. W. John Brown the Hero. — Boston: James K. West Company. 
1905. Pp. 126. 

Wood, Margaret L. — Memorial of Samuel N. Wood. — Kansas City: Hudson- 
Kimberly Publishing Company. 1892. Pp. 284. 



V. BOOKS, PAMPHLETS AND DOCUMENTS RELATING PARTICU- 
LARLY TO THE HARPER'S FERRY RAID 

Adam, L. — La Question Americaine. — Nancy. 1861. Pp. 72. 

Anderson, Osborn P. — A Voice from Harper's Ferry. . . . — Boston: The 

Author. 1861. Pp. 72. 
L'Angle-Beaumanoir, Raoul de. — La Correspondance de Harper's Ferry. — 

Paris: M. de Brunkhoff. 1886. Pp. 271. 
Anti-Abolition Tract, No. 3. — The Abolition Conspiracy to Destroy the 

Union. — New York: Van Evrie, Horton & Co. 1863. 
Anti-Slavery History of the John Brown Year, being the Twenty-Seventh 

Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society. — New York: American 

Anti-Slavery Society. 1861. Pp. 337. 
Anti-Slavery Tract, No. 7. New Series. — Testimonies of Capt. John Brown 

at Harper's Ferry. . . . — New York: The American Anti-Slavery Society. 

i860. Pp. 16. 
Arbelli, H. P. — John Brown, ou Le Pendu de Victor Hugo. — Bordeaux: 

Durand. 1861. Pp. 8. 
AvEY, Elijah. — The Capture and Execution of John Brown, a Tale of Martyr- 
dom. ... — Chicago: The Hyde Park Bindery. 1906. Pp. 144. 
Bagby, G. W. — 1 860-1 880. John Brown and William Mahone. A Historical 

parallel foreshadowing civil trouble. — Richmond, Va.: C. F. Johnston. 1880. 

Pp. 23. 
Barker, Joseph. — Slavery and Civil War, or The Harper's Ferry Insurrection. 

With a Review of Discourses on the Subject by Rev. W. H. Furness, Hon. J. R. 

Giddings, and Wendell Phillips, Esqre. — (Philadelphia, i860?) 
BoTTs, John Minor. — Interesting and Important Correspondence between 

Opposition Members of the Legislature of Virginia and Hon. John Minor Botts, 

January 17, i860. — Washington: Lem. Towers, i860. Pp. 16. 
Brandt, Isaac. — History of John Brown. — Des Moines: Watters-Talbott 

Printing Company. 1895. Pp. 26. 
Brown, Capt. John, The Life, Trial, and Conviction of. — New York: Robert 

M. DeWitt. 1859. Pp. 108. 
The Life, Trial, and Execution of. — New York: Robert M. DeWitt. 

1859. Pp. 108. 
Channing, William Ellery. — John Brown, and the Heroes of Harper's Ferry. 

— Boston: Cupples, Upham & Company. 1886. Pp. 143. 



698 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Channing, William Ellery. — The Burial of John Brown. — Boston : 1 860. Pp. 8. 

Chawner, Robert. — The Life of John Brown. (In verse.) — Washington, 
D. C: Published by the author. 1896. Pp. 16. 

Chevalier, Henri Emile, et Pharaon F. — Un Drame Esclavagiste. Pro- 
logue de la Secession Americaine. ... — Paris: Charlieu et Huillery. 1864. 
Pp. 60. 

Child, Lydla Maria, Correspondence between, and Governor Wise and Mrs. 
Mason, of Virginia. — Boston: American Anti-Slavery Society, i860. Pp. 28. 

Cook, John E., Confessions of, Brother-in-Law of Governor A. P. Willard, of 
Indiana. . . . Published for the Benefit of Samuel C. Young, a Non-Slave- 
holder, who is Permanently Disabled by a Wound Received in Defense of 
Southern Institutions. — Charlestown: D. Smith Eichelberger. 1859. Pp. 16. 

Drew, Thomas. — The John Brown Invasion: an Authentic History of the Har- 
per's Ferry Tragedy. — Boston: J. Campbell, i860. Pp. 112. 

Fanaticism and Its Results: Fact versus Fancies. — By a Southerner. — Balti- 
more: Joseph Robinson, i860. Pp. 36. 

Fernand, Jacques. — John Brown et ses amis Stephens, Copp, Green et Cop- 
lands Morts pour I'Affranchissement des Noirs. — Paris: C. Vanier. 1861. Pp. 
15. (Verse.) 

Fouquier, A. — John Brown, I'Abolitioniste. — Paris: Laine et Havard. 1861. 
Pp. 16. 

Garrison, Went)ELL Phillips. — The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. — From An- 
dover Review of December, 1890, and January, 1891, privately printed as a 
pamphlet. 1S91. 

[Garrison, William Lloyd]. — The New " Reign of Terror" in the Slave-holding 
States 1859-1860. — New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, i860. Pp. 
144. 

A Fresh Catalogue of Southern Outrages upon Northern Citizens. — 

New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, i860. Pp. 72. 

Glasgow, J. Ewing. — The Harper's Ferry Insurrection. — Edinburgh: Myles 
MacPhail. i860. Pp. 47. 

Grove, S. E. — Souvenir and Guide-Book of Harper's Ferry, Antietam and 
South Mountain Battlefields. — Hagerstown, Maryland. 1905. Pp. 102. 

Harper's Ferry, Rise and Progress of the Bloody Outbreak at. — Published by 
direction of the New York Democratic Vigilant Association. New York. 1859. 

Hovenden. — Last Moments of John Brown. Painted by Thomas Hovenden, 
M. A., 1884. Etched by Thomas Hovenden, M. A., 1885. (A brief sketch of the 
subject of the painting, and opinions of the press concerning the painting.) — 
Philadelphia: G. Gebbie. 1885. Pp. 16. 

Hugo, Victor. — John Brown. — Paris: E. Dentu. 1861. Pp.8. 

Letter from General C. F. Henningsen in reply to the letter of. — New 

York: Davies and Kent. i860. Pp. 32. 

Hugo, Victor, and Stephens, Mrs. Ann S. — Victor Hugo's letter on John 
Brown with Mrs. Ann S. Stephens's Reply. — New York: Irwin P. Beadle & 
Co. i860. Pp. 24. 

Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, The, and a Faithful History of Know Nothing- 
ism and Black Republicanism and their Proposed Union under the Irrepressible 
Conflict Doctrine of Seward and his Allies, North and South. — Baltimore. 
1859. Pp. 12. 

John Brown Raid, The, Special Order Book of. MSS. — Virginia State Library, 
Department of Archives and History. 

JosEPHUS, Junior (Joseph Barry). — The Annals of Harper's Ferry. — Mar- 
tinsburg. West Virginia. 1872. Pp. 126. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 699 

Kapp, F. — Die erste politische Hinrichtung in den vereinigten Staaten, John 

Brown. Demokratischc Studicn. — Hamburg. 1860-1861. Vol. i. 
Leech, Rev. Samuel Vanderlip. — The Raid of John Brown at Harper's Ferry 

as I Saw It. — Washington: Published by the Author. 1909. Pp. 24. 
Logan, Frank G. — The Logan Emancipation Cabinet of Letters and Relics of 

John Brown and Abraham Lincoln. Reprinted from Chicago Tribune. — 

Chicago. 1892. Pp. 40. 
Luciennes, Victor. — Le Gibet de John Brown. — Paris: Castel. 1861. Pp. 8. 

(Poem.) 
Macdonald. — The Two Rebellions; or. Treason Unmasked. By a Virginian. — 

Richmond: Smith, Bailey & Co. 1865. Pp. 144. 
Marquand, Henri. — John Brown. — Paris: Dentu. i860. Pp.246. 
Maryland State Papers. — Correspondence Relating to the Insurrection at 

Harper's Ferry, 17th October, 1859. (Document Y.) — Annapolis; B. H. 

Richardson, i860. Pp. 79. 
Mason Report. — Report of the Select Committee of the Senate appointed to 

inquire into the late invasion and seizure of the public property at Harper's 

Ferry. — Rep. Com. No. 278, 36th Congress, ist Session. 
Moore, Cleon. — John Brown's Attack on Harper's Ferry. — Point Pleasant, 

West Virginia: Mrs. Livia Simpson PofTenbarger, Editor and Publisher. 1904. 

Pp. 22. 
[Moore, Wm. H.] — Startling Incidents & Developments of Osawotomy Brown's 

Insurrectory and Treasonable Movements at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, October 

17th, 1859. By a Citizen of Harper's Ferry. — Baltimore: John W. Woods, 

Printer. 1859. Pp. 72. 
Parker, Rev. Theodore. — John Brown's Expedition Reviewed in a Letter 

from Rev. Theodore Parker at Rome to Francis Jackson, Boston. — Boston: 

The Fraternity, i860. Pp. 19. 
Pate, H. Clay. — John Brown as Viewed by H. Clay Pate. — New York: Pub- 
lished by the Author. 1859. Pp. 48. 
Price, William Thompson. — "Old John Brown of Harper's Ferry;" a drama 

in five acts. — (New York? 1895?) Pp. 8. 
Prowe, a. — John Osawatomie Brown, der Negerheiland. Festschrift zur ersten 

sakular Feier der Vereinigten Staaten von Nord Amerika. — Braunschweig: 

W. Bracke, Jr. 1876. Pp. 148. 
Redpath, James. — Echoes of Harper's Ferry. — Boston: Thayer & Eldridge. 

i860. Pp. 513. 
Report: A Full ant) Authentic Report of the Famous Case of The People, 

upon the relation of John Brown, praying for a writ of habeas corpus to release 

his soul from the custody of Lucifer Diavolo, Respondent. Pp. 8. 
Richman, Irving B. — John Brown Among the Quakers. — Des Moines: His- 
torical Department of Iowa. 1894. Pp. 239. 
Robinson, William S. — " W^arrington " Pen-Portraits. — Boston: Edited and 

Published by Mrs. W. S. Robinson. 1887. Pp. 587. 
Sanborn, F. B. — Memoirs of John Brown, written for Rev. Samuel Orcutt's 

History of Torrington, Ct. . . . with Memorial verses, by William Ellery 

Channing. — Concord, Massachusetts. January, 1878. Pp.107. 
Schilling, John L. — The Three Emancipators. — Bellaire, Ohio. 1892. Pp. 59. 
The Story of John Brown's Raid and Capture and the Founding of 

Historic Harper's Ferry. — Toledo, Ohio. 1895. Pp.12. 
SwAYZE, Mrs. J. C. — Ossawatomie Brown, or the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry. 

A Drama in Three Acts. New York: Samuel French. 1859. 



700 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Todd, Rev. John. — Reminiscences, or Early Settlement and Growth of Western 
Iowa. — Des Moines: Historical Department of Iowa. 1906. 

Trials; Remarkable Trials of all Countries, with the Evidence and Speeches 
of Counsel. — New York: S. S. Peloubet & Co. 1882. Pp. 436. 

Valentine, Mann S. — The Mock Auction. Ossawatomie Sold. — Richmond: 
J. W. Randolph, i860. Pp. 261. 

Vesinier, Pierre. — Le Martyr de la Libert^ des negres, ou John Brown Le 
Christ des Noirs. — Berlin: Jules Abelsdorff. 1864. Pp. 403. 

Villeroi, B. De. — Subscription for the Erection of a Monument to the Memory 
of the Brave and Unfortunate John Brown. — Philadelphia: Jones & Thacher. 
1867. Pp. 8. 

Virginia State Papers. — Address of the Hon. C. G. Memminger, Special 
Commissioner from the State of South Carolina, before the Assembled Authori- 
ties of the State of Virginia. — Doc. No. Lv 11. January 19, i860. Pp. 43. 

Calendar of Virginia State Papers, vol. 11. 

Court of Appeals of Virginia. Commonwealth vs. Brown. — Richmond. 

1859. Pp. 16. 

Document No. i. Appendix to Message i. Documents Relative to 

the Harper's Ferry Invasion. — Richmond. December, 1859. 

Document No. l. Appendix to Message 2. — Richmond. December, 

1859. 

Report of the Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute to the 



Board of Visitors. Doc. No. xxviii. January 20, i860. 

Communication from the Governor of Virginia enclosing letters from 

the Governor of Ohio, relative to requisitions for fugitives from justice. Doc. 
No. Lix. March 14, i860. 

Report of the Joint Committee of the General Assembly of Virginia 

on the Harper's Ferry Outrages. Doc. No. xxxi. January 26, i860. Pp. 24. 

Executive's Letter Book, 1856-1860. — Virginia State Library, De- 
partment of Archives and History. 

Journal of the House of Delegates of Virginia. 1859- 1860. 

Virginia State Publications. — List of Field Officers, Regiments and Battalions 
in the Confederate States Army. 1861-1865. 

Von Holst, Dr. Hermann. — John Brown. Edited by Frank Preston Stearns. 
— Boston: Cupples and Hurd. 1889. Pp. 232. 

Williams, Edward W. — The Views and Meditations of John Brown. — Wash- 
ington: The Author. 1893. Pp. 16. 

Williams, James, late United States Minister to Turkey. — Letters on Slavery 
from the Old World; written during the Canvass for the Presidency of the 
United States in i860. To which are added a Letter to Lord Brougham on the 
John Brown Raid. — Nashville, Tenn.: Southern Methodist Publishing House. 
1861. Pp. 321. 

Wright, Henry C. — The Natick Resolution. — Boston. 1859. Pp. 36. 

Zittle, Capt. John H. — A Correct History of the John Brown Invasion. 
Edited and published by his widow. — Hagerstown, Maryland. 1905. Pp. 259. 



VI. REPORTS OF IMPORTANT MEETINGS DEALING WITH THE 
RAID AND EXECUTION 

American Slavery. — Demonstration in favor of Dr. Cheever, in Scotland. 
Letter of Sympathy from Distinguished Clergymen and other Gentlemen. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 701 

Speeches at Meetings in Edinburgh and Glasgow. — New York: John A. Gray. 

i860. Pp. 17- 
The Martyrdom of John Brown. — The Proceedings of a Pubhc Meeting 
Held in London on the 2nd December, 1863, to Commemorate the Fourth 
Anniversary of John Brown's Death. — London: Emancipation Society. 1864. 

Pp. 2T,. 

Speeches of Hon. A. C. Barstow, Rev. George T. Day, Rev. A. Woodbury. 

Hon. Thomas Davis, and Resolutions Adopted at a Meeting of Citizens held 

in Providence, R. L . . . on the Occasion of the Execution of John Brown.— 

Providence: Amsbury & Co. i860. Pp. 32. 
Boston Courier Report of the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Thursday, 

December 8, 1859. — Boston: Published by Clark, Fellows & Company, 

Great' Union Meeting. — Philadelphia, December 7, 1859. — Philadelphia: 
Cressy and Marks. 1859. Pp. 59- 

Report of the Public Meeting held in Trcmont Temple, Boston, December 2, 
1859, on the Occasion of the Execution of John Brown. — See The Liberator 
(Boston) for December 9 and 16, 1859. 

Report of the Union Meeting held in Brewster's Hall, New Haven. . . . Decem- 
ber 14, 1859. — New Haven: Printed by Thomas J. Stafford, i860. Pp. 52. 

A Tribute of Respect Commemorative of the Worth and Sacrifice of John 
Brown. ... It being a full Report of ... a meeting held in the Melodeon. 
• , , . — Cleveland: Published for the Benefit of the Widows and Families of 
the Revolutionists of Harper's Ferry. 1859. Pp. 62. 

The Republic and its Crises. — Speeches of Hon. Edward Everett, at the 
Boston Union Meeting. December 8, 1858, and of ex-Gov. Thos. H. Seymour 
and Professor Samuel Eliot, of Trinity College, at the Hartford Union Meeting, 
December 14, 1859. —January, i860. Pp. 28. , , , r 

Official Reports of the Great Union Meeting in the New York Academy of 
Music, December 19, 1859. — New York: Davies & Kent. 1859. Pp. 176. 

Vn. IMPORTANT SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES ON JOHN BROWN 
AS SEPARATELY PUBLISHED 

Anderson, Benning, Preston. — Addresses delivered before the Virginia State 
Convention by Hon. Fulton Anderson, Commissioner from Mississippi, Hon. 
Henry L. Benning, Commissioner from Georgia, and Hon. John S. Preston, 
Commissioner from South Carolina, February, 1861. — Richmond: Wyatt M. 
Elliott, Printer. 1861. Pp. 64. , • u u- 

Andrew, John A. — Speeches of, at Hingham and Boston, together with his 
Testimony before the Harper's Ferry Committee of the Senate. ... — Boston. 

i860. Pp. 16. , ^^ , „ 

BARKER, Joseph. — Address: Slavery' and Civil War, or the Harper s Ferry 

Insurrection, with a Review of Discourses on the Subject by Rev. W. H. 

Furness, Hon. J. R. Giddings, and Wendell Phillips, Esq. — Phila. i860. 
Beecher, Henry Ward. — Patriotic Address; Edited by John R. Howard.— 

New York: Fords, Howard and Hulbert. 1889. Pp. 857. 
Bierce, Gen. L. V. — Address delivered at Akron, Ohio, on the Evening of the 

Execution of John Brown. . . . — Columbus, Ohio. 1865. Pp. n. 
Clarke Dr. James Freeman. An Address before the Massachusetts Historical 

Society on John Brown. — Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 

June, 1884. 



702 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Douglass, Frederick. — John Brown: An address ... at the Fourteenth 

Anniversary of Storer College. — Dover, N. H. 1881. Pp. 28. 
FuRNESS, Horace Howard. — Historical Address delivered in Connection with 

the Installation of the Reverend Charles E. St. John as Minister of the First 

Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. ... — Phila. 1908. Pp. 20. 
Hall (N.). The Iniquity (Brown's execution); — The Man (Brown), the Deed, 

the Event (two addresses). — Boston. 1859. 
Lawrence, Amos A. — An Address before the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings. May, 1884. 
Rameau, S. — Oration on John Brown. — Aux Payes. i860. Pp. 7. 
Roe, Alfred S. — John Brown: a Retrospect. — Worcester. Pp. 25. (A eulogy 

read before the Worcester Society of Antiquities, December, 1884.) 
Ross, Alexander Milton. — Speech, delivered October 21, 1864, at the Annual 

Meeting of the Society for the Abolition of Human Slavery held in Montreal. — 

Montreal: John Lovell. 1864. Pp. 8. 
Shearer, W. J. — John Brown's Raid. An address delivered at the Hamilton 

Library (Carlisle, Pa.), January 17, 1905. — Pamphlet. Pp. 12. 
SwiNTON, John. — Old Ossawattomie Brown. Speech . . . delivered in Turn 

Theatre, New York, December 2, 1881. Pp. 11. 
Trumbull, Lyman. — Remarks of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, on Seizure 

of Arsenals at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and Liberty, Missouri. . . . Delivered 

in the U. S. Senate, December 6, 7, and 8, 1859. — Washington: Buell and 

Blanchard. 1859. Pp. 16. 
VooRHEEs, Hon. Daniel W. — Speech delivered at Charlestown, Virginia: 

November 8, 1859, upon the trial of John E. Cook. — Tallahassee: Printed 

by Dyke and Carlisle, i860. Pp. 28. 
Addresses of Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees, of Indiana; comprising his 

Argument delivered at Charlestown, Virginia, November 8, 1859, upon the 

Trial of John E. Cook, for Treason and Murder. — Richmond, Virginia: West 

& Johnson. 1861. Pp. 55. 
Wade, Benjamin Franklin. — The Invasion of Harper's Ferry. Speech de- 
livered in the United States Senate, December 14, 1859. — Washington: Buell 

& Blanchard. 1859. Pp. 8. 

VIII. SOME TYPICAL SERMONS 

Ames, Rev. Charles Gordon. — The Death of John Brown. . . . Delivered at 
Bloomington, 111., December 4, 1859. Reprinted in 1909. Pp. 38. 

Cheever, Rev. George Barrell. — "The Curse of God against Political 
Atheism." — Boston: Walker, Wise & Co. 1859. Pp. 24. 

Clarke, Rev. James Freeman. Causes and Consequences of the Affair at Har- 
per's Ferry. A Sermon preached in the Indiana Place Chapel on Sunday 
morning, November 6, 1859. — Boston: Walker, Wise & Co. 1859. Pp. 14. 

Colver, Rev. Nathaniel, D. D. — The Harper's Ferry Tragedy: a symptom of 
disease in the heart of the nation. . . . — Cincinnati, i860. Pp. 16. 

FuRNESS, W. H. — Put up thy Sword. A Discourse delivered before Theodore 
Parker's Society at the Music Hall, Boston, Sunday, March 11, i860. Boston: 
R. F. Walcutt. i860. Pp. 23. 

Gregory, Rev. John. -. The Life and Character of John Brown. ... — Pitts- 
burgh: A. A. Anderson, i860. Pp. 16. 

Gulliver, Rev. J. P. — The Lioness and Her Whelps. A Sermon on Slavery. 
Preached in the Broadway Congregational Church, Norwich, Connecticut, De- 
cember 18, 1859. — Norwich: Manning, Perry & Co. i860. Pp. 12. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 703 

Hall, Nathaniel. — Two Sermons on Slavery and its Hero- Victim. — Boston: 

John Wilson & Son. 1859. Pp. 37. 
Newh.\ll, Rev. Fales Henry. — A Funeral Discourse occasioned by the Death 

of John Brown of Osawatomie. . . . — Boston: J. M. Hewcs. 1859. Pp. 22. 
Patton, Rev. W. W. — The Execution of John Brown . . . Delivered . . . 

December 4, 1859. — Chicago: Church, Goodman & Cushing. 1859. Pp. 14- 
Rice, Rev. Daniel. — Harper's Ferry and Its Lesson. — Lafayette, Ind.: Luse 

& Wilson, i860. Pp. 18. 
Taft, Rev. S. H. — Discourse on the Character and Death of John Brown, 

delivered at Martensburgh, New York, December 12, 1859. ... — Des 

Moines: Carter & Hussey. 1872. 
Tower, Rev. Philo. — Slavery Unmasked and the Invasion of Kansas. — 

Rochester. 1856. . 

Tufts, Rev. Samuel N. — Slavery and the Death of John Brown. Preached in 

Auburn Hall, Auburn, December II, 1859. — Lewiston. 1859. Pp.20. 
Wheelock, Rev. Edwin M. — A Sermon for the Times. Preached at Music 

Hall, Boston, Sunday, November 27, 1859. — Boston: The Fraternity. 1859. 
Young, Joshua. — Man Better than a Sheep: A Sermon preached Thanksgiving 

Day, November 24, 1859. — Burlington, N. H.: E. A. Fuller. 1859. Pp. 22. j 

IX. BIOGRAPHIES, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, AND REMINISCENCES OF 
CORRELATED OR IMPORTANT PERSONAGES 

Andrew, John A., The Life of. — By Henry Greenleaf Pearson. — Boston: 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1904. 2 vols. 
AsHBY, General Turner, Memoirs of, and his Compeers. — By Rev. James B. 

Avirett. — Baltimore: Selby and Dulaney. 1867. Pp. 408. 
BowT)iTCH, Henry Ingersoll, Life and Correspondence of. — By Vincent Y. 

Bowditch. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1902. 2 vols. 
Bowles, Samuel, Life and Times of. — By George S. Merriam. — New York: 

The Century Company. 1885. 2 vols. 
Buchanan, James (President). Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of 

the Rebellion. — New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866. Pp. 296. 
Chase, Salmon P. — By Albert Bushnell Hart. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & 

Co. 1899. Pp. 465- 

Correspondence of. — MSS. in Library of Congress. 

Child, Lydia Maria, Letters of. — Introduction by J. G. Whittier. Appendix 

by Wendell Phillips. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1883. Pp. 280. 
Clarke, Dr. James Freeman. —Anti-Slavery Days. — New York: J. W. Lovell 

Co. 1883. Pp. 224. 
Coleman, Lucy N. — Reminiscences. — Buffalo: H. L. Green. 1S91. Pp.86. 

Colfax, Schuyler, Life of. — By O. J. HoUister. — New York: Funk and 

Wagnalls. 1886. Pp. 535- 
Conway, Moncure D. — Autobiography, Memories and Experiences. — Boston: 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1904. 2 vols. 
Delaney, Martin R., Life and Public Services of. — By Frank A. Rollins. 

Boston. 1868. r J r, 1 

Douglass, Frederick, Life and Times of. (By Himself.) — Hartford: Park 

Publishing Company. 1882. Pp. 564. 
the Colored Orator. — By Frederic May Holland. — New York: Funk 

and Wagnalls. 1891. Pp. 423- 



704 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, A Memoir. — By James Elliot Cabot. — Boston: 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1888. 2 vols. 

Miscellanies. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1888. Pp.425. 

Everett, Edward. — Orations and Speeches. — Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 

1868. 4 vols. 
O'Ferrall, Charles T. — Forty Years of Active Service. — New York and 

Washington: The Neale Publishing Co. 1904. 
Forbes, John Murray, Letters and Recollections of. Edited by his daughter, 

Sarah Forbes Hughes. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1899. 2 vols. 
Garrison, William Lloyd. The Story of His Life Told by His Children. — 

New York: The Century Company, 1885-89. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & 

Co. 1894. 4 vols. 

Correspondence of. MSS. Boston Public Library. 

Grant, U. S. — Personal Memoirs. — New York: C. L. Webster & Co. 1885. 2 vols. 
Grinnell, Josiah Busnell. — Men and Events of Forty Years. — Boston: D. 

Lathrop Company. 1891. Pp. 426. 
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. — Cheerful Yesterdays. — Boston: Houghton, 

Mifflin & Co. 1898. Pp. 374. 
Contemporaries. (A chapter entitled: "Capt. Brown — A Visit to his 

Household in 1859.") — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1899. 
Howe, Julia Ward. — Reminiscences. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

1899. Pp. 465. 
Howe, Samuel Gridley, Letters and Journals of. Edited by his daughter, 

Laura E. Richards. — Boston: Dana Estes & Co. 1908-1909. 2 vols. 
Howe, Dr. Samuel G., Memoir of. — By Julia Ward Howe. — Boston: Howe 

Memorial Committee. 1866. Pp. 127. 
Howe, Dr. S. G., the Philanthropist. — By F. B. Sanborn. — New York: Funk 

and Wagnalls. 1891. Pp. 370. 
Jackson, Stonewall, Memoirs of. — By his widow, Mary Anna Jackson. — 

Louisville: The Prentice Press. 1895. Pp. 647. 
Jackson, Thomas J. (Stonewall Jackson), Life and Letters of. — By his wife, 

Mary Anna Jackson. — New York: Harper and Brothers. 1892. Pp. 479. 
Jackson, Lieutenant-General Thomas J., Life and Campaigns of. — By R. 

L. Dabney, D. D. — New York: Blelock and Company. 1866. Pp. 742. 
Johnson, Dr. William Henry, Autobiography of. Albany, N. Y.: The Argus 

Printing Co. 1900. 
Lawrence, Amos A., Life of. — By his son, William Lawrence. — Boston: 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1888. Pp. 289. 

AISS. in Massachusetts Historical Society. 

Lee, General Robert E., Recollections and Letters of. — By his son, Captain 

Robert E. Lee. — New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. 1904. Pp. 461. 
Lee, Robert Edward, Soldier and Man, Life and Letters of. — By Rev. J. 

William Jones, D. D. — New York: Neale Publishing Co. 1906. Pp.486. 
Lesley, Peter and Susan, Life and Letters of. — Edited by their daughter, 

Mary Lesley Ames. — New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1909. 2 vols. 
Lieber, Francis, Life and Letters of. — Edited by Thomas Sergeant Perry. — 

Boston: J. R. Osgood. 1882. 2 vols. 
Lincoln, Abraham, Speeches of. — L. E. Chittenden, compiler. — New York: 

Dodd, Mead & Co. 1895. 
The True. — By William Elroy Curtis. — Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin- 

cott. 1903. 
By John G. Nicolay and John Hay. — New York: The Century Com- 
pany. 1890. 10 vols. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 705 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Life of. — Edited by Samuel Longfellow. 

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1891. 3 vols. 
Longfellow, Samuel, Memoir and Letters of. — Edited by Joseph May. — 

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1894. Pp. 307. 
LowRY, Hon. M. B., A Tribute of Gratitude to. — Philadelphia: Jas. B. Rodgers 

Co., Printers. 1869. Pp. 36. 
McClure, Colonel Alexander K. — Recollections of Half a Century. — Salem, 

Massachusetts. 1902. Pp. 502. 
Lincoln and Men of War Times. — Philadelphia: The Times Publishing 

Company. 1892. Pp. 496. 
McKim, Sarah A. In Alcmoriam. — By Wendell Phillips Garrison. — New York: 

De Vinne Press, Privately Printed. 1891. Pp. 23. 
Mason, James M., Public Life and Diplomatic Correspondence of, with some 

personal history. — By his daughter. — Roanoke, Virginia: The Stone Com- 
pany. 1903. Pp. 603. 
May, Samuel J. — Some Recollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict. — Boston: 

Fields, Osgood & Co. 1869. Pp. 408. 
MORLEY, Hon. John Lothrop, Memoir of. — By Oliver Wendell Holmes. — 

Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings. December, 1878. 
MoTT, James and Lucretia, Life and Letters of. — Edited by Anna Davis Hal- 

lowell. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. Pp. 566. 
Parker, Theodore, Preacher and Reformer. — By John White Chadwick. — 

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1900. Pp. 422. 

Life of. — By O. B. Frothingham. — Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1874. 

Life and Correspondence of. — By John Weiss. — New York: D. Ap- 

pleton & Company. 1864. 2 vols. 
Phillips, Wendell, the Agitator. — By Carlos Martyn. — New York: Funk and 

Wagnalls. 1890. Pp. 600. 
Orator and Agitator. — By Lorenzo Sears. — New York: Doubleday, 

Page Co. 1909. Pp. 379. 

Speeches, Lectures and Letters. — Boston: James Redpath. 1863. 

Speeches, Lectures and Letters. Second Series. — Boston: Lee and 

Shepard. 1891. Pp. 476. 
Pillsbury, Parker. — Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles. — Boston: Cupples, 

Upham & Co. 1883. 
Preston, Margaret Junkin, Life and Letters of. — By Elizabeth Preston Allan. 

— Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1903. Pp. 378. 

Realf, Richard. — Richard Realf's Free-State Poems. Edited by Col. 

Richard J. Hinton. — Topcka: Crane & Company. 1900. Pp. 135. 
Poems by. With a Memoir by Richard J. Hinton. — New York: Funk 

and Wagnalls Co. 1898. Pp. 232. 
Riddle, Albert Gallatin. — Recollections of War Times. — New York: G. P. 

Putnam's Sons. 1895. Pp. 380. 
Robinson, Charles, the First Governor of Kansas, A Chapter in the Life of. — 

By Frank W. Blackmar. — American Historical Association, Annual Report. 

1894. 
Life of . — By Frank W. Blackmar. — Topeka: Crane & Co. 1902. 

Pp. 438. 
Ross, Alexander Milton. — Recollections and Experiences of an Abolitionist. 

— Toronto: Roswell & Hutchinson. 1875. Pp. 224. 

Russell, Addison Peale. — Characteristics. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co. 1884. Pp. 362. 



7o6 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Sanborn, F. B. — Recollections of Seventy Years. — Boston: Richard G. 

Badger. 1909. 2 vols. 
Sedgwick, John, Major-General, Correspondence of. — De Vinne Press. 

Printed for Carl and Ellen Battelle Stoeckel. 1903. 2 vols. 
Sewall, Samuel E., A Memoir. — By Nina Moore Tiffany. — Boston: Houghton, 

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Sewall, Samuel E., and Andrew, John A. — Argument on behalf of Thaddeus 

Hyatt. (Pamphlet.) Pp. 20. 
Seward, Fred. W. — Seward at Washington, 1846-1861. — New York: Derby 

and Miller. 1891. Pp.446. 
Seward, William H., The Works of. — Edited by George E. Baker. — Boston: 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. 5 vols. 
Life of. — By Frederic Bancroft. — New York: Harper and Brothers. 

1900. 2 vols. 

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Sherman, John. — Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cab- 
inet. — New York; The Werner Company. 1906. Pp. 949. 
Smith, Gerrit. — A Biography. By Octavius Brooks Frothingham. — New 

York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. First Edition. 1878. Pp. 381. 
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Stephens, Alexander H., Life of. — By R. M. Johnston and William Hand 

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Weed, Thurlow, Autobiography of. Edited by his daughter, Harriet A. Weed 

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Wise, Henry A. — Seven Decades of the Union. — Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin- 
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York: The Macmillan Company. 1899. Pp. 434. 
Wise, John S. — The End of an Era. — Boston: Houghton, Mififlin & Co. 1899. 

Pp. 474. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 707 

X. LOCAL AND GENERAL HISTORIES WITH SPECIAL REFER- 
ENCES TO JOHN BROWN AND HIS MEN 

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Pp. 256. 
BoTTs, John Minor. — The Great Rebellion. — New York: Harper & Brothers. 

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Author. 1899. Pp. 448. 
Chadwick, French Ensor. — Causes of the Civil War. — New York: Harper & 

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Coffin, Charles C. — The Drum Beat of the Nation. — New York: Harper & 

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Connecticut. — Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut. — Edited 

by J. Hammond Trumbull. — Boston: Edward L. Osgood. 1886. 2 vols. 
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War of the Revolution, 1775-1783. Edited by Henry P. Johnston, A. M., under 

the authority of the Adjutant-General of Connecticut. — Hartford. 1889. 
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Draper, John W. — The Civil War in America. — New York: Harper & 

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Green, Mason A. — Springfield, 1636-1886. History of Town and City. — 

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1903. 4 vols. 
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7o8 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Herbert, George B. — Popular History of the Civil War. — Lupton, N. Y. 1884. 

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HoRTON, R. G. — A Youth's History of the Great Civil War in the United States. 
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Hume, J. F. — The Abolitionists. — New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1905. 

Humphreys, Frederick. — The Humphreys Family in America, Part H. Sep- 
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Imperial Democracy. — New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1899. 

Keifer, Joseph Warren. — Slavery and Four Years of the War. — New York: 

G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1900. 
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Lane, Samuel A. — Fifty Years and Over of Akron and Summit County. — 

Akron: Beacon Job Department. 1892. Pp. 1167. 
Lee, Guy Carleton. — True History of the Civil War. — Philadelphia: J. B. 

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McMaster, John Bach. — History of the People of the United States from the 

Revolution to the Civil War. — New York: D. Appleton, & Co. 7 vols. 
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INDEX 



The letters noted in the Index include all those which are quoted, whether in whole or in part, in 
the text. In some cases the names of the persons to whom the letters were addressed are found only 
in the Notes. The Inde.x contains also references to some of the more important matters of interest 
embodied in tiie Motes; but no attempt has been made to index the Notes and Appendix as text. 
The capital letter B refers always to the subject of the book. 



Abbott, James Burnett, reinforces B at Black 
Jack, 208; attacks Franklin, 212; in command 
of defence of Lawrence, 258; 380. 

Abolition, outlook for, never so hopeful as at 
time of Harper's Ferry raid, 586. 

Abolitionism, Owen Brown's conversion to, 14; 
charge of, disavowed by Big Springs Con- 
vention, 104. 

Abolitionists, causes of B's later disgust with, 
45; B's first contact with those of New Eng- 
land, 49, 50; radical, disappointed by plat- 
form of Big Springs Convention, 103; mili- 
tant, reap harvest in sack of Lawrence, 188; 
charged with responsibility for Pottawatomie 
nmrders, 191; difference between their view 
and B's of the slavery issue, 336; in their view 
slavery was the sum of human wickedness, 
384; Southern view of their wishes, 436. See 
Radical Political Abolitionists. 

Abolitionists in Kansas, in 1854 and 1855. See 
Free State men. 

Adair, Charles S., warns Osawatomie of ap- 
proach of Border Ruffians, 243; 175. 

Adair, Mrs. Florilla, half-sister of B, 82, 166, 
196. Wife of 

Adair, Rev. Samuel Lyie, settles at Osawa- 
tomie, Kansas, 79; quoted concerning meet- 
ing of settlers at Osawatomie, 134, 13s; gives 
shelter to Jason and John, Jr., after Pottawa- 
tomie, i66;refuses to receiveOwen, i67;later, 
approves B's action, 167; receives slaves freed 
by B in Missouri raid, 372; 82, 128, 179, 196, 
210, 239, 242, 293, 304, 308, 358, 398. Leilas 
io Owen Brown, 606 n. 86, S. C. and Mrs. 
Davis, 253 n., James Hanway, 372; from B, 
136, 303. 306. 

Adams, Annie (Brown), daughter of B, first heard 
of proposed raid in i8s4, 54, 55, 56; joins B 
*at Kennedy Farm, 405; her recollections of 
the life there, 416-420; sent away from Har- 
per's Ferry, 420; enters Sanborn's school, 
533; quoted, concerning Hazlett, 572, and 
Tidd, 681 ; as to other matters, 78, 81 n., 408, 
421, 422, 424, 594 n. 12, 595 n. 20. 

Adams, F. G., 181. 

Adams, George, letter from B, 542. 

Adams, John Quincy, Pres. of U. S., 23. 

Adamson, Mr., 239. 

^Esop's Fables, 16. 

Akron (Ohio), B's operations at, in 1855, 85; 27, 
34. 

Alabama, pro-slavery men from, in Kansas, 137, 
138. 

Albany Journal, quoted, 138, 139. 

Alburtis, Capt. E. G., of the Martinsburg com- 
pany, quoted concerning fight at Harper's 
Ferry, 443, 444; 447. 

Alcott, Amos Bronson, impressions of B in 
l8S9, 398. 

Alderman, Amos D., 121. 

Alderman, Henry, 121. 

Allan, Elizabeth Preston, Life and Letters of 
Margaret Junkin Preston, ciuoted, 556. 



Allegheny Mountains, B's first thought of, as 
future scene of his operations, 48. 

Allen, C. G., 230. 

Allen, Ethan, and Co., 282. 

Allstadt, John H., taken prisoner by B's men, 
431, 432, 437, 439. 

Allstadt, John Thomas, taken prisoner by B's 
men, 432; quoted concerning killing of Mayor 
Beckham, 441; and the wounding, 441, and 
death, 448, of Oliver Brown. 

American Anti-Slavery Society, 559. 

Anderson, Col. Edward, 179. 

Anderson, Capt. G. T., 351. 

Anderson, Jeremiah Goldsmith, killed in en- 
gine-house, 449, 454 and n.; sketch of, 681. 
6S2; 400, 402, 407, 419, 462 n., 558 n. 

Anderson, Osborn Perry (colored), elected 
" member of Congress" at Chatham Conven- 
tion, 3ii\ quoted, 420: receives George 
Washington's sword from Col. Washington, 
431; his escape, 44s, 471; his incredible ac- 
count of his escape and Hazlett's, in A Voice 
from Harper's Ferry, 44s, 446, 685; sketch of, 
6Ss; 331, 413, 415, 419, 439, 537. 

Anderson, Samuel, 175. 

Andreas, A. T., History of the Slate of Kansas, 
quoted, 117, 212, 350, 602 n. 13. 

Andrew, John A., his impressions of and sym- 
pathy with B, 400; criticises undue haste of 
B's trial, 482; retains Chilton to defend B, 
493; quoted, 557; before the Mason Commit- 
tee, 634 n. 113; 479 n., 560, 561. Letters to 
W. P. Fessenden, 530, Dr. S. G. Howe, 532 n. 
And see Pearson, Henry G. 

Anthony, Col. D. R., 574- 

Anthony, Capt. J. M., his Old John Brown, 
quoted, 154. 

Anti-Slavery doctrines, disavowed by both 
Free State conventions in autumn of 1855, 
104, 105. 

Anti-Slavery meetings, attended by B, 49. 

Anti-Slavery party, depressed by result of first 
election in Kansas, 95; designs of, as repre- 
sented by pro-slavery leaders, 97. 

Anti-Slavery Standard, 575. 

Arabia, river steamer, 225. 

Archibald, Eben, 3S0. 

Army Appropriation Bill, 1856, 227. 

Arny, William F. M., 276, 277, 361. 

Arrest of judgment, motion for, in B's case, 
argued and denied, 497. 

Arsenal, at Harper's Ferry, 428, 429, 430. 

Ashby, Capt. Turner, 555, 683 n. 128. 

Atchison, David R., pro-slavery leader in Kan- 
sas, urges Missourians to vote in Kansas 
election, 94; his speech at Weston, 94, 97; 
urges Missourians to invade Kansas, 117; and 
the Lawrence treaty of peace, 124; commands 
Platte County Riflemen, 144; incites Border 
Ruffians to attack Free State Hotel, 14s; pro- 
slavery circular of, 216; commands forces 
marching on Osawatomie, 240; disbandment 
of his forces a fatal blow to hopes of Mis- 



712 



INDEX 



sourians, 260; quoted, 596 n. 4; 130, 179, 192, 
22s, 229, 230, 250, 257. 

Atchison Freedom's Champion, on the Har- 
per's Ferry raid, 473- 

Atlantic Monthly, 221, 304 n., 349, 362. 

Austin, Freeman, captain of Osawatomie Com- 
pany, 229, 244, 245, 246, 250. 

Avery, Dr., 233- 

Avis, Capt. John, B's kind and considerate 
jailer at Charlestovvn, 488, 544; B pledged 
not to attempt to escape, 512; his affidavit as 
to his relations with B, 670, 671; 439, 499, 
545, 546, 571. 578. 

Ayres, name of two Missouri raiders, 368. 

B., E., of Rhode Island, letter from B, 539. 

B., T. A., letter to Gov. Wise, 518. 

Babb, Edmund, suspected of writing " Floyd 
letter," 411. 

Babcock, Mr., 233. 

Bacon, Rev. Dr. Leonard, schoolmate of B, 17; 
interview with B at Tallmadge, Ohio, 293. 

Bacon, Rev. Leonard W., his John Brown, 592 
n. 15. 

Baker, Mr., outrage on, 172. 

Baillie, John A., 214. 

Ball, A. M., master-machinist of B. & O. R. R., 
taken prisoner at Harper's Ferry, 439. 

Baltimore, sends five militia companies to 
Harper's Ferry, 444. 

Baltimore American, quoted, 569. 

Baltimore Convention (i860), 585. 

Baltimore Greys, 467. 

Baltimore Patriot, quoted, 568. 

Baltimore Sun, 417. s68. 

Baltimore and Ohio R. R., train of, held up by 
B's men, 432, 433; employees of, in Martins- 
burg Company, 443; and the precautions 
taken for execution of B, 524, 525. 

Bancroft, Frederic, his Life of W. H. Seward, 
quoted, 47s n. 

Barber, Gen., 189. 

Barber, Thos.W., murdered by Clark, 118, 180, 
330, 352; his the only life lost in the " Waka- 
rusa War," 126; rival claimants to the honor 
of having killed him, 126. 

Barbour, Alfred W., 465. 

Barnes, William, letters from B, 276, 283. 

Bates County (Mo.) Standard, letter from Rev. 
Martin White, 242. 

Battle of the Spurs, the, 381-383; authorities 
for account of, 634 n. 100. 

Baumer, Mr., 388. 

Baxter, Richard, his Saint's Rest, 16. 

Baylor, Col. Robert W., at Harper's Ferry, 447, 
452, 465; charges preferred against, 464; 
court of inquiry, 464. 

Beckham, Fontaine, Mayor of Harper's Ferry, 
killed by Edwin Coppoc, 441; fierce indigna- 
tion of citizens, 441, 442; a friend to the ne- 
gro, 442 n.; 447. 479. 570. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 188, 191, 518 n. 

" Beecher's Bibles," Sharp's rifles so-called, 
188, 306. 

Bell, James M., colored, 330. 

Benjamin, Jacob, 151, 152, 178, 240, 247. 

Bernard, J., on the Pottawatomie murders, 190. 

Bernard, J. M., his store pillaged, by B's orders, 
210. 

Berryville (Va.) Clarke Journal, quoted, 501. 

Bertram, John, 281. 

Bethune, Dr. George W., 563. 

Bickerton, Capt. Thomas, concerning the second 
attack on Franklin, 230, 234; 232, 256. 

Bierce, Gen. Lucius V., 85, 153. 

Big Springs Convention (Free State), Sept. 5, 
185s. 91; nominates A. H. Reeder for Con- 
gress, 103; its platform disappointing to radi- 
cal Abolitionists, 103, 104; favors exclusion 
from Kansas of all negroes, and denounces 



attempts to interfere with slaves and slavery, 
104; disavows charge of abolitionism, 104; 
denounced by Charles Stearns, 104; its cow- 
ardliness fails to mollify hostile Missourians, 
104; entitled to a measure of credit, 105; but 
attempts to face both ways, 105; creates Ter- 
ritorial Executive Committee, 106. 

Biggs, Dr., 461. 

Black Jack, a spring on the Sante Fe trail, fight 
at, 200 seqq.; described by B and by H. C. 
Pate, 202-207; Pate's article in N. Y. Trib- 
une, 204; crucial moment of, 207; list of par- 
ticipants on B's side, 614 n. 25 ; authorities for 
narrative of, 614 n. 28. 

Black Laws of Shawnee Legislature, 91, 92, loi; 
no genuine attempt to enforce, loi; effect of, 
in north and east, loi. 

Blair, Charles, contracts to make pikes for B, 
283, 284, 400, 401; his delay in delivering 
them, 284; the procedure of " a canny Yan- 
kee," 2S4, 285. 

Blair, Montgomery, 493, 508. 

Blake, Major G. A. H., 224. 

Blakesley, Levi, adopted brother of B, 2, 14, 17. 

" Bleeding Kansas," direct relation of, to 
Harper's Ferry and the Civil War, 201. 

Blessing, John H., B gives his Bible to, 553. 

Blood, James, quoted concerning Pottawa- 
tomie affair, 154; I7S, 176. 232. 

Blue Lodges, in Kansas election, 98. 

Blunt, John, 168. 

Boerley, Thomas, shot by B's raiders, 435, 437, 
479. 

Boice, Capt., 247. 

Bolivar Heights, 428, 429, 431, 435, 437. 

Bondi, August, his story of B's camp on Ottawa 
Creek, 198, 199; his store burned and cattle 
stolen, 200; concerning the outrages commit- 
ted by pro-slavery men, 212, and the " lift- 
ing " of Dutch Henry's horses, 235; 151, 152, 
155, 175, 177, 178, 202, 210, 211, 229, 234, 
236, 240, 247. 

Boone, Col., 189. 

Boonville (Mo.) Observer, quoted, 99, 216. 

Booth, John Wilkes, 555. 

Border RuflSans, eastern settlers' opinion of, 
96; described by W. A. Phillips, 96, 97; and 
by T. H. Gladstone and Sara T. L. Robinson, 
97; misrepresentations of their leaders, 97; 
destroy Free State Hotel, 14s, 146; lawless 
character of, 171; not guilty of assaults on 
women, 173, 174; threats of violence common 
among, 178, 179; elated by sack of Lawrence, 
181; believed thoroughly in justice of their 
cause, 186; causes of their bitterness against 
Free State men, 186; under Rev. M.White, ar- 
rest Jason Brown, 194; Jason's story of their 
treatment of himself and John Brown, Jr., 
194 seqq.; bent on rescuing Pate, are headed 
off by Col. Sumner, 209; blockade Missouri 
River against Lane's Free State men, 225; 
put to flight by Cline's company on South 
Middle Creek, 237; their raid on Osawatomie, 
240 seqq.; destroy the settlement, 246; losses 
in Osavifatomie fight, 248, 249; no worse than 
" Kansas Ruffians " in summer of 1856, 264; 
in the Marais des Cygnes massacre, 348 seqq.; 
at Fort Scott, 352; 93, 130. See also Alaba- 
ma, Georgia, Missourians as Kansas Militia, 
Pro-slavery men, etc., and South Carolina. 

Border Times, 193. 

Boston, great meeting in Tremont Temple on 
day of B's execution, 559, 560. 

Boston Transcript, quoted, 481. 

Boston Traveller, 498 n. 

Boteler, A. R., concerning death of Kagi and 
Leary, 445. 

Botts, Capt., 439. 

Botts, John Minor, quoted, 649 n. 50. 

Botts, Lawson, assigned as counsel for B, 4S3, 



John Brown] 



INDEX 



713 



484; opening address of , 490; denounced by 
B, and withdraws from defence, 492; assists 
Hoyt, 493; sketch of, 64s n. 49; 486, 487, 489, 
491, 507. Letter jrom A. II. Lewis, 506. 

Bowditch, Henry I., 516. 

Bowditch, William I., 516. 

Bowen, Dr. Jesse, consignee of B's revolvers, 
289; and B's escape from arrest in Iowa City, 
388. Letter from B, 388. 

Bowles, Samuel, ciuoted, SS8. 

Bowman, George E., 591 n. 6. 

Brackett, Edwin A., sketclies B in jail, 546; 574- 

" Branded Hand, The," sobriquet of Jonathan 
Walker, 51, 594 n. 13. 

Branson, Jacob, arrest and rescue of (1855), 
113, 114, 129, 140, 380. 

Brennen, Francis, 121. 

Brewster, Martha E. See Brown, Mrs. Martha 
E. 

Brockett, Lieut., Pate's lieutenant at Black 
Jack, 202, 206, 207; declines to take part in 
Marais des Cygnes massacre, 348; clerk in 
Land Office at Fort Scott, 352; quoted by 
Crawford, 374. 

Brooks, Preston, assault on Charles Sumner, 
154. 327. 

Brown, Col. (pro-slavery), 240. 

Brown, Dr. (pro-slavery), at public meeting in 
Tabor, 385. 

Brown, Mr., State Senator of Mississippi (pro- 
slavery), quoted, 566. 

Brown, Agnes, daughter of Salmon, 59s n. 22. 

Brown, Amelia, daughter of B, death of, 35- 

Brown, Annie, daughter of B. See Adams, Mrs. 
Annie (Brown). 

Brown, Austin, son of Jason, death of, 81. 

Brown, Mrs. Dianthe (Lusk), first wife of B, her 
character and disposition, 6, 7, 18; her mar- 
riage to B, 18; mother of seven children, 19; 
her lineage, 19; insanity in her family, 19, 
592 n. 21; mental derangement, 19, 507; her 
death, 19, 24, 592 n. 28; 22, 23. 

Brown, Ellen, infant daughter of B, death of, 67. 

Brown, Ellen, daughter of B. See FabHnger, 
Mrs. Ellen (Brown). 

Brown, Frederick, uncle of B, his children, 12; 
18, 37. 

Brown, Frederick, brother of B, birth of, 13. 
Letter from B, 43. 

Brown, Frederick, infant son of B, death of, 24. 

Brown, Frederick, son of B, third sergeant of 
Liberty Guards, 121; and the claim-jumper, 
130; on B's surveying tour, 133; in the Potta- 
watomie party, 153; keeps his hands un- 
stained at Pottawatomie, 158; regrets Potta- 
watomie murders, 165, 166; and the alleged 
assault on Mary Grant, I73; at Black Jack, 
203; his appearance there decisive, 207, 208; 
his reasons for returning to Kansas with B, 
224; his last parting with B, 239; murdered by 
Rev. Martin White (Aug. 1856), 241, 242, 
357; mental derangement of , 507; 19, 76,81, 
83, 91, 120, 121, 159, 160, 162, 198, 210, 222, 
247, 278, 598 n. 33- 

Brown, Frederick, son of Watson, 415, 416. 

Brown, George 'Washington, indicted for trea- 
son, 142; B's opinion of his Herald of Free- 
dom, 354- 

Brown, Mrs. Isabella (Thompson), wife of Wat- 
son, 422, 561. Letters from Watson Brown, 
415, 416. 

Brown, Jason, son of B, in Springfield office of 
Perkins and Brown, 59; goes to Kansas, 75, 
76; his " shanty " at Osawatomie, 89; and the 
Indians, 90; ignorant of real purpose of Pot- 
tawatomie expedition, 153; horrified by the 
murders, remonstrates with B, 165; questions 
Frederick, 165, 166; returns to Osawatomie 
with John, Jr., 166; taken in by the Adairs, 
166; and the alleged assault on Mary Grant, 



173; arrested by Border Ruffians under Rev. 
Martin White, 194; his story of tlicir treat- 
ment of John, Jr. and himsilf, 194 seqti.; 
taken to Lecompton and released, 197; joins 
his father's company, 197; goes to Iowa with 
B, 261, 262; with B in Chicago, 2O9; declines 
to join B at Harper's Ferry, 413; quoted, 
concerning B's temperance principles, 21, the 
Browns' migratory habit, 28 n., the first 
news of Pottawatomie murders, 151, B's part- 
ing comi)any with John, Jr. at Prairie City, 
151, B and burning Osawatomie, 248; 19, 39. 
44, 45, 46, 81, 91, 112, 118, 148, 179. 207, 210, 
223, 24s, 246, 247, 253, 287, 343, 397. Letters 
to Mary Anne Brown, 172, 173, Ruth 
(Brown) Thompson, 229. 

Brown, Mrs. Jason, 173, I97, 223. Letter to 
Mary Anne Brown, 112. 

Brown, Jeremiah, brother of B, 270. 

Brown, John, great-great-grandfather of B, 10. 

Brown, John, great-grandfather of B, 10. 

Brown, John, grandfather of B, a revolutionary 
soldier, i, 10, 278, 543; children of, 11. 

Brown, John, uncle of B, 12. 

Brown, John, of Osawatomie. 

Early years. — Birth (Torrington, Conn., 
May 9, 1800), I, 13; early years and charac- 
ter described by himself in letter to Henry L. 
Stearns, 1-7; descent, i, 10, 15; moved to 
Ohio (1805), 2; in school of adversity, 2; ad- 
dicted to lying in boyhood, 3; effect on, of 
war of 181 2, 4; interest in slavery question 
first aroused, 4; taste for reading, 4, s; desire 
to e-xcel, 5; an early convert to Christianity, 5; 
familiar with the Bible, 6; his trading in- 
stincts, 6; vanity fed by success in business, 
6; marries Dianthe Lusk, 6, 18; liking for do- 
mestic animals and for shepherd's calling, 7; 
accustomed to adversity, 8; character, as 
moulded by his early training, 9; resemblance 
to his father, 11;" a representative of the best 
type of old New England citizenship," is; in- 
fluence of ancestry on, 15; the first American 
hanged for treason, 15; boyhood, 16; an ex- 
cellent Bible-teacher, 16; the Bible his favorite 
book, 16; range of reading, 16; schooling in 
Ohio, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, 16, 
17; thinks of entering ministry, 17; returns to 
Ohio and tanning, 17; an excellent cook, 17; 
opposition to slavery confirmed, 17, 18; kind- 
ness of heart, 18; genuineness of his Christian 
principles, 18; a domestic despot, 19, 36; his 
children devoted to him, 19; his early severity 
to them, 19, 592 n. 23; his tenderness and de- 
votion in later years, 19, 20; requires strict 
observance of the Sabbath, 20; his intense re- 
ligious training of his sons results in a reaction, 
21; views on temperance, 21; early married 
life of, described by James Foreman, 21-23; 
debate with Methodist minister, 22; moves 
to Richmond, Penn. (1825), 23; his value to 
that new settlement, 23; postmaster of Ran- 
dolph, Penn., 23; his connection with school 
and church work there, 24; marries his second 
wife, Mary Anne Day, 24, 25; organizes an 
independent Congregational Church, 25; 
mail-carrier, 23; an " Adams man " in poli- 
tics, 25; unabated interest in fugitive slaves, 
25; Free Masonry and the murder of Morgan, 
26; moves to Franklin Mills, Ohio (1835), 26; 
in financial distress, 26; contractor for canal 
construction, 27; unsuccessful land specula- 
tions, 27; interested in Franklin Land Co., 
27; insolvency due to failure of real-estate 
ventures, 28; his integrity unjustly ques- 
tioned, 28; his business misfortunes ex- 
plained, 28, 29, 593 n. 32, 33; returns to Hud- 
son, Ohio (1837), 29; breeds race-horses, 29; 
first visit to New York, 29; beginning of his 
career as " John Brown, shepherd," 29; uses 



714 



INDEX 



[John Brown 



money placed in his hands by New England 
Woolen Co. for purchase of sheep, 30; his dis- 
tressing circumstances, 30; negotiations with 
trustees of Oberlin College, concerning pur- 
chase of land in Virginia, come to nothing 
through his vacillation, 31-33; shepherd for 
Capt. Oviatt, 33; moves to Richfield, Ohio 
(1842), 33; loses four young children, 34; goes 
through bankruptcy, 34; success in raising 
cattle and sheep, 34; moves to Akron, Ohio 
(1844). 34; in partnership with Simon Per- 
kins, Jr. in sheep-raising, 34, 35; involved in 
extensive litigation, 36, 37; suit of Western 
Reserve Bank and its complications, 37-39; 
his conduct in this litigation open to criti- 
cism, 38; quarrel with A. P. Chamberlain, 39- 
41. 593 n. 49- 

Gensis of his great plan. — When did the 
forcible overthrow of slavery become " his 
greatest or principal object "? 42 seqq.; no 
documentary evidence of special interest in 
slavery until 1834, 43; plans school for ne- 
groes, 44; requires his children to swear to do 
their utmost to abolish slavery (1839?), 45, 
46; Gen. Carrington's anecdote of, 47; con- 
fides his plan to Frederick Douglass, 47, 48; 
idea of using force probably not conceived 
until after 1840, 48; gradual evolution of his 
plan, 48, 49; removes to Springfield, Mass. 
(1846), 49; in touch with militant Boston 
Abolitionists, 49; early acquaintance with the 
Liberator, 49; approves of Greeley's doctrine 
of opposing slavery with Sharp's rifles, but 
not of the Garrisonian policy of non-resist- 
ance, 49; his Sambo's Mistakes, so, 659-661; 
policy of armed resistance clearly developed 
in 185 1, 50,51; founds U. S. League of Gilead- 
ites, 50; his Words of Advice to them, 50, 51, 
52; strives to band negroes together to resist 
slave-catchers, 51; obtains signatures of 44 
negroes to his " agreement " and resolutions, 
52, which contain direct counsel to resist of- 
ficers of the law with force, and to " shoot to 
kill," S3; his memorandum-book, no. 2, 53; 
confides details of Virginia plan to Woodruff 
and others in 1854 or 185s. 54; tries to secure 
Woodruff's cooperation, S4; Harper's Ferry 
design probably revealed to others as early, 
54, SS. but may have been conceived much 
earlier, 55; his plan and his object probably 
varied from year to year, 55, 56; hopes to 
help Southern leaders to secede, and his rea- 
son therefor, 56; his main motive to come to 
close quarters with slavery, 56. 

Wool-merchant. — Establishes headquar- 
ters at Springfield for sale of Perkins and 
Brown's wool, 57; his home and mode of life in 
Springfield, described by Fred'k Douglass, 57; 
his personal appearance and characteristics 
at that period, 57, 58; interested in export of 
wool, 59, 61; not fitted for the business, 60, 
61; trip to Europe {1849), 61; on the conti- 
nent, 61, 62; ill-success of trip, 62,63; rela- 
tions with Simon Perkins, 64, 65; Htigation 
with Warren. 6s, and with Burlington Mills 
Co., 66; close of his career as a wool-mer- 
chant, 66; continues in farming and sheep- 
raising with Perkins, till 1854, with some suc- 
cess, 66, 67; deaths of infant children, 67; 
residence in Springfield, 67 ; controversy with 
Sunderland the hypnotist, 67, 68; attends 
Zion Methodist Church, 68; disturbed by his 
sons' religious backsliding, 68-70; his wish to 
help negroes inspires his plan to move to 
Adirondacks, 70; visits North Elba, 71; be- 
ginning of his friendship with Gerrit Smith, 
71; removes family to North Elba (1849), 72; 
hires farm there, 72; wins prize at cattle fair, 
72; his counsel to the negroes, 72; defends 
them against white residents of North Elba, 



73 ; described by R. H. Dana, Jr., 74; urges 
North Elba negroes to resist Fugitive Slave 
Law, 75; commands his criildren to resist at- 
tempts to enforce it, 75; leaves for Akron, 75; 
continues farming and sheep-raising there four 
years, 75; second removal to North Elba 
(June, 1855), 76; buys three farms there, 72, 
76; his restlessness leaves him no peace, and 
he turns toward Kansas, 76, 596 n. 64. 

First days in Kansas. — Metamorphosis 
into Capt. John Brown of Osawatomie, 77, 
78; a natural leader, 77; his straightforward 
unselfishness, 78; parting words to his family 
on leaving for Kansas, 78; receives letters 
from John, Jr. in Kansas, reciting conditions 
and appealing for arms, 82, 83; their effect on 
him, 84, 85; leaves North Elba again (Aug. 
i8ss), 85, 86; attends anti-slavery conven- 
tion at Syracuse, 85; money raised for him, 
85; ships firearms to Cleveland, 85; holds 
meetings and receives contributions at 
Akron and elsewhere in Ohio, 85; in Chicago, 
86; journey thence described, 87; what he saw 
in Missouri, 87; his meeting with a Missou- 
rian, 88; joins sons at Osawatomie (Oct. 7, 
1855), 88; his destitute condition, 88; finds 
the settlement in distress, 88; his purpose not 
to settle in Kansas, but to fight along the 
Kansas-Missouri line, 93; believes in " med- 
dling directly with the peculiar institution," 
93; prepared to take property or lives of 
Border Ruffians, 93 ; eftect upon him of crimes 
of Missourians in Kansas, iii; goes armed to 
election of Free State delegate, in; describes 
relief of Lawrence by F^ree State men and end 
of " Wakarusa War," 118-120; muster-roll of 
his company, the Liberty Guards, 121; is 
called captain, 121 ; his part in events at Law- 
rence slurred over by himself, 122; R. G. El- 
liott concerning, 122; impression of age pro- 
duced by him, 122; James F. Legate concern- 
ing, 122; his view of the treaty of Lawrence, 
123, 124, 127; declares himself an Abolition- 
ist and offers to attack Border Ruffian camp, 
123; talk with Legate about slavery, 124; re- 
turns, with sons, to Brown's Station, 126, 127; 
visits Missouri, 127; chairman of Osawa- 
tomie convention to nominate state officers, 
127; position won by him in Kansas, 127; in 
Missouri again, 128; his surveying tour, 133; 
Henry Thompson's regard for him, 134; at 
settlers' meeting at Osawatomie, 134; words 
attributed to him by Rev. Martin White, 
134; Judge Cato's court, 135, 136; his know- 
ledge of surveying turned to account, 137. 

Pottawatomie. — His brief report of the 
Pottawatomie murders, 148; question of his 
criminality in the business still subject of 
dispute in Kansas, 148; place in history de- 
pends on view taken of his conduct in that 
business, 148; leaves camp of John, Jr.'s com- 
pany at Prairie City, 151; his action deter- 
mined by complaints of Weiner, 151; his plan 
revealed to a council of some of John, Jr.'s 
company, 152; preparations for the expedi- 
tion, 153; " tired of caution," 153; his manner 
on the journey, iS4; plan disclosed to 
Townsley, 15s; proposes to strike at night, 
15s, 157; his influence over his sons, 158; the 
killing of the Doyles, 158-161; none of them 
killed by his hand, 159; the killing of Wilkin- 
son, 161, and of William Sherman, 162-164; 
recognized by Harris, 163; satisfied at last, 
164; did he intend to kill Judge Wilson? 165; 
meets Jason Brown and talks with him, 165; 
hue and cry after, 166; opinions of Free State 
men concerning his action, 167-169; Charles 
Robinson concerning, 169, 170; views of 
James Hanway and T. W. Higginson, 170; 
possible justification of his act discussed, 170 



John Brown] 



INDEX 



715 



seqq.; not recalled to Pottawatomie because 
Free State women were in danger, 172, 173; 
had not heard of attack on Morse, 175; was 
he warned of threats by an unidentified 
" messenger"? 175, 1 76; his conduct inconsist- 
ent with " messenger " theory, 176; probable 
grounds of his determination, 176; probably 
impelled largely by general body of threats 
against Free State settlers, 177, 178; why, 
then, did he start for Lawrence? 178, 179; his 
own statements of his reasons for the mur- 
ders, 179, 180; E. A. Coleman's and Col. An- 
derson's reports of his words, 179; logical re- 
sult of this plea, 179; other excuses offered 
for his crime, 180, 181; said to have been di- 
vinely inspired, 181; his action a failure as a 
peace measure, but successful as a war mea- 
sure, 181, 182; was he obeying orders of Free 
State leaders? 182-184; S. C. Pomeroy on 
this point, 182, 183; not in Lawrence May 21, 
as alleged by Pomeroy, 183; likened by C. 
Robinson to the Saviour, 184; never claimed 
to have acted under orders, 184; said to have 
stated that victims were tried by jury, 184; 
believed a conflict inevitable, 185; killed his 
men in the honest belief that he was a faithful 
servant of Kansas and the Lord, 185; his mo- 
tives wholly unselfish, 185; his aim to free a 
race, 1S5; his act no more excusable than 
similar acts of Border Ruffians, 186; absurdity 
of likening him to Grant, etc., 187; always 
disingenuous about the murders, 187; ethic- 
ally the Pottawatomie crime cannot be suc- 
cessfully palliated or excused, 187, 188, 612 
n. 90. 

Bl.\ck Jack to Osawatomie. — Prowls 
about camp where Jason and John, Jr. were 
prisoners, hoping to rescue them, 196; at Ja- 
son's claim, 197; thence to Ottawa Creek, 198; 
meets and eludes U. S. troops, 198; camp on 
Ottawa Creek described by Bondi and Red- 
path, 19S-200; preparing " a handful of 
young men for the work of laying the founda- 
tions of a free commonwealth," 199; hears of 
camp of Missourians at Black Jack, 200; 
J. E. B. Stuart and H. C. Pate, 201; starts 
with Prairie City Rifles for Pate's camp at 
Black Jack, 201, 202; accused of violating 
flag of truce, 203, 205, 206; describes battle of 
Black Jack in letter to his family, 203, and in 
N. Y. Tribune, 204-207; his and Shore's writ- 
ten agreement with Pate, 207; releases Pate's 
prisoners, 208; his views of Free State men, 
208; his camp broken up, prisoners released, 
and men dispersed, by Col. Sumner, 209; 
orders pillaging of Bernard's stores, 209, 210; 
thinks raiding for supplies justified, 210; in 
hiding, 210, 211, 220; reign of terror at Osa- 
watomie due to Pottawatomie murders, 213, 
2is; resumes activity in July (1856), 220; in 
Lawrence en route to Topeka, 220; ride to 
Topeka described by W. A. Phillips, 221; his 
view of affairs in Kansas, 221 ; censures both 
parties, 221; his sociological views, 221; 
slavery " the sum of all villainies," 222; at the 
Willets farm near Topeka, 222; leaves To- 
peka neighborhood, 222-224; members of his 
party, 222; his contest with his son Oliver, 
223; S. J. Reader's impressions of him, 223, 
224; first meeting with Aaron D. Stevens, 
224; turns back at Nebraska City, 224; starts 
with Walker and Lane for Lawrence, 228; 
at Topeka again, 228; Walker deemed him 
insane, 228; talk with Walker on Pottawa- 
tomie murders and responsibility therefor, 
228; and with John, Jr., 228, 229 and n.; in 
Lawrence, 229; the " old terrifier," 230; 
probably not at capture of " Forts " Stanwood 
and Titus, 232; demands extreme penalty 
against prisoners taken at Titus, 233; his re- 



newed activity after exchange of prisoners, 
235 and n.; in Osawatomie, 235; his plans, ac- 
cording to Bondi, 235; his concern for good 
mounts for his men, 23s ; begins to organize hia 
■' volunteer-regular " force, 236; the covenant 
drawn up by him, 236, 661-664; bis plan for 
meeting the enemy, 236; marches south into 
Linn County, 236; speech to his company, 
236; his company and Cline's nearly fight 
each other, 237; speech to his prisoners, 237, 
238; raids pro-slavery settlement at Sugar 
Creek, 238; returns to Osawatomie with 150 
cattle, 238; camps at Crane's ranch, 238; his 
activity, 238, 239; described by J. H. 
Holmes, 239; urged by Lane to return to 
Lawrence, 239; last parting with his son 
Frederick, 239; anticipation of attack on 
Osawatomie, 240; warned of Reid's approach, 
243; his part in the battle, 244 seqq.; tactical 
disadvantage of his position, 245; his forces 
retreat into the river, 2.45; his linen duster, 
etc., 24s, 246; report of his death, 247; makes 
no attempt to rally his force, 247; " I will 
carry the war into Africa," 248; exaggerates 
pro-slavery losses, 248, 249; his newspaper 
account of the fight, 249; his arrival in Law- 
rence (Sept. 7. 1856), described by H. Reisner, 
253; movements in the interim, 253; offered 
and declines command of expedition against 
Leavenworth, 254; remains with John, Jr., 234, 
255; his share in defence of Lawrence, 258, 
259; his reasons for deciding to leave Kansas 
for the East, 261; at Tabor, Iowa, 261, 267; 
narrowly escapes arrest, 261, 621 n. 86; Jason 
Brown's narrative of the journey, 261; contro- 
versy concerning his private meeting with C. 
Robinson, 263; condition of affairs in Kansas 
when he left, 264; his then status in the coun- 
try's eyes, 266; uncompromising hostility to 
slavery his chief claim to a place in history, 
266. 

In the East. — Tabor, a congenial haven, 
267; chooses it as headquarters of his " volun- 
teer-regular " force. 268; unjustly denounces 
Gov. Geary, 268; his plans for war on slavery, 
268; in Chicago, 268, 269; returns to Tabor, 
at request of Kansas Nat. Com., 269, 270; to 
Chicago and North Elba, with his son Wat- 
son, 270; quoted concerning defeat of Fre- 
mont by Buchanan, 270 n.; in Boston early in 
1857, 271; meets F. B. Sanborn, Theo. 
Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, and others, 
271; Sanborn's and Garrison's impressions, 
271, 272; first visit to G. L. Stearns, 272; his 
view of Free State leaders in Kansas, 272; A. 
A. Lawrence's impressions of, 273; Thoreau's 
impressions of, 273, 274; his connection with 
Pottawatomie murders never known to 
Stearns, and not thoroughly to other Boston 
friends, 274; his Virginia plans not then made 
known to them, 274, 275; Massachusetts 
State Kansas Com. votes to furnish rifles and 
money, 274; controversy concerning the 
rifles, 27s; at meeting of Kansas Nat. Com., 
27s. 276; S5000 voted to him for defensive 
measures, 276; charges National Com. with 
bad faith, 276; his requisition for supplies, 
276, 277, 664; visits Peterboro, N. Y., and 
North Elba, 277; again in Boston, 277; wan- 
dering restlessly through New England and 
New York, 277, 278; speech before committee 
of Mass. Legislature, 278; trying to raise 
money for his volunteer-regulars. 278 seqq.; 
at Canton, Conn., 278; contributions re- 
ceived, 278 seqq.; his appeal in N. Y. Tribune, 
279; assured by LawTence that his family 
shall be taken care of , 280; Siooo raised to 
purchase homestead for family, 280; urges 
collection of subscriptions, 281; purchase of 
Thompson land in No. Elba consummated, 



7i6 



INDEX 



[John Brown 



281; makes addresses in Worcester, March, 
1857, 281; his plans stated, 281; Dr. F. Way- 
land and R. W. Emerson on his oratory, 281, 
282; slim results of Worcester meetings, 282; 
in Easton, Penn., with ex-Gov. Reeder, 282; 
learns of his sons' decision to fight no more, 
282; financial progress unsatisfactory, 283; 
expected in Kansas, 283; makes contract for 
pikes with C. Blair, 283, 284; for what pur- 
pose were they ordered? 284, 285; delay in 
delivery due to lack of funds, 284; first ac- 
quaintance with Hugh Forbes, 28s; attracted 
by him and confides plans to him, 285, 286; an 
unfortunate alliance, 2S6; his suspicions soon 
aroused, 286; " helped " by Gerrit Smith, 
287; threatened with arrest, 287; with 
Judge Russell in Boston, 288; his "farewell 
to the Plymouth Rocks," etc., 288; G. L. 
Stearns buys revolvers for him, 289; at Al- 
bany, N. Y., and Vergennes, Vt., 290; as- 
sumes nom de guerre of Nelson Hawkins, 290; 
John, Jr. fears for his safety in Kansas, 291; 
leaves for Kansas with considerable supplies, 
291, 292; Stearns's confidence in him, 292; 
reduced to distress before reaching his desti- 
nation, 292; stages of his retarded journey, 
292-294; «ow de guerre of James Smith, 292; 
at Tallmadge, O., semi-centennial, 293; his 
memorandum-book quoted, 293, 294.; in Iowa 
City, 294; learns that Pottawatomie indict- 
ments are nol-pros'd, 294; in Tabor, Aug. 7, 
1857, 294; his close friends, at Grasshopper 
Falls Convention, oppose taking part in elec- 
tion of delegate to Congress, 296; their de- 
feat helped turn his mind to his contemplated 
raid against slavery, 297; applies to G. L. 
Stearns for money, 297; his addendum to 
Forbes's Duty of a Soldier, 298; sends copies to 
Wattles and others, with appeals for aid, 298; 
Forbes's usefulness of brief duration, 298; 
table-talk recalled by Rev. H. D. King, 299; 
in his mind, slavery the one wrong, 299; disa- 
greement with Forbes, 299; leaves Tabor, 
Nov. 2, 1857, 299; reasons for delay, 299 seqq.: 
appointed " brigadier-general " by Lane, 
301; Jamison's mission, 301; his immediate 
plans confided to Sanborn, 302; financial con- 
dition, 302; apparent lack of determination 
at this time, 302, 303; defended by Sanborn 
in letter to Higginson, 303; " the best dis- 
union champion you can find," 303, 304; 
aided with money by E. B. Whitman, and the 
Adairs, 304; goes to Lawrence, Kansas, 304, 
and disappears after two days, 304, 305; stel 
nominis umbra, 305; in Topeka, 305; not con- 
tent with policy of Free State leaders to ac- 
cept existing territorial government, 307; the 
Free State secret society, 307; enrolls first re- 
cruits for Harper's Ferry, 307, 308; J. E. 
Cook concerning his recruiting operations, 
308; his ultimate destination first made 
known to his men, 308; his vacillation at an 
end, 308, 309; henceforth all his energies bent 
upon " troubling Israel " in Virginia, 309; 
his men not pleased with Virginia plan, 310; 
has words with Cook, 310; his magnetism pre- 
vails, 310; travels across Iowa (Dec. 1857), 
311, 312; at Springdale, 312; anecdote of, and 
J. Townsend, 312; his diary quoted, 312; dis- 
closes details of his plan, 313 seqq.; first men- 
tion of Harper's Ferry, Jan. 15, 1858, 313; 
differences with Forbes, 313; his Virginia 
plan divulged by Forbes, 313, 314; " The 
Well-Matured Plan," 314; Forbes's plan the 
more practical, 314; efforts to dissuade him, 
316; with F. Douglass in Rochester, 317; un- 
pleasant relations with Forbes, 317 seqq.; dic- 
tates disingenuous letter from John, Jr. to 
Forbes, 318; tries to arrange meeting at Ger- 
rit Smith's, 319; confides his plan to Smith, 



420; reads to Smith and Sanborn his con- 
stitution for governing the territory he might 
redeem from slavery, 321; his will prevails, 
321, 322; discloses his plan to the Gloucesters 
and other negroes in Brooklyn and Phila., 
323; tries to enlist new recruits, 323; dis- 
appointed by H. Thompson's refusal, 323, 
324; in Boston, 324; asks Theo. Parker to 
prepare addresses to U. S. troops and to citi- 
zens generally, 324, 325; concern for his 
men's reading, 325; method of raising funds 
for him, 325; Higginson's characterization, 
326; Senator Sumner's coat, 327; in various 
parts of N. Y., 327; in St. Catherine's, Can- 
ada, 327; and Harriet Tubman, 327; his stay 
in Canada a reconnoissance, 328; Dr. De- 
laney, 328; returns to Springdale for his 
" sheep," 328; new recruits, 328; Springdale 
to Chatham, Canada, via Chicago. 329, 330; 
vain attempts to keep his men from writing 
indiscreet letters, 330; speech to the Chatham 
Convention, 331, 332; his " Provisional Con- 
stitution," etc., 332, 333; chosen comman- 
der-in-chief, 333\ the constitution considered 
as a revelation of his character and philoso- 
phy, 334 seqq.; some provisions suggest in- 
sanity, 334, 335; difference between his views 
and those of the Abolitionists, 336; Chatham 
Convention exhausts his funds, 336, 337; 
needs of his men, 337; in Boston again, 338; 
consents to temporary shelving of Virginia 
plan, 339, 340; his opinion of his " backers," 
as reported by Higginson, 340; receives some 
money and arms, 340, 341 ; attitude of Boston 
group at this time (spring of 1858) the first 
sign of the effort to evade responsibility, 342. 

K.'^NSAS AGAIN ; THE MISSOURI RAID. In 

North Elba and Cleveland, en route to Kansas, 
343; loses five of his men by postponement of 
his plan, 344; in Lawrence in disguise, June 25, 
1858, 345; assumes name of Shubel Morgan 
345; attracted by exploits of James Mont- 
gomery, 352; in touch with Montgomery, 
3S3; prepares " Articles of Agreement for 
Shubel Morgan's Company," 353; describes 
condition of affairs in southeastern Kansas, 
354. 355; his opinion of the Herald of Free- 
dom, 354; interesting personal disclosures in 
letter to John, Jr. 355; directs him to collect 
material for " A Brief History of John Brown, 
otherwise (old B)," etc., 356; builds " Fort 
Snyder," 356; did he acquire title to Snyder's 
claim? 3s6, 357; tries to obtain revolvers sent 
by National Kansas Com., 357 ; refuses to take 
revenge on Martin White, 357, 358; ill at the 
Adairs', Aug. -Sept., 1858, 358; in Lawrence, 
359; need of funds supplied in part by notes 
sent by G. L. Stearns, 359, 360; signs as agent 
for National Kansas Com., 360; his authority 
denied by H, B. Hurd, 360; a pardonable er- 
ror of judgment, 360, 361; his view of the 
slavery question, according to W. A. Phillips, 
362; prophesies war, 362; his whereabouts in 
Oct. (1858), 362, 363; state of his health, 363; 
the Wattles family's recollection of him, 363; 
with Montgomery in his raid on Paris, Kans.. 
364; Acting-Gov. Walsh urges offer of reward 
for his apprehension, 364; plot to capture, 
364; drafts a peace agreement, which is 
adopted at meeting of Free Soilers and pro- 
slaverymen, 365, 366, 665, 666; joins Mont- 
gomery in attack on Fort Scott, 366 ; his dislike 
of serving under another keeps him from tak- 
ing an active part, 366; wrongfully charged 
by Robinson and others with responsibility 
for Fort Scott affair, 367; why Montgomery 
assumed leadership, 367; the Missouri raid 
(Dec. 1858), 367 seqq.; due to the story told 
by Jim Daniels, 367; his companions in the 
raid, 368; slaves not the only property taken. 



John Brown] 



INDEX 



717 



368, 369; Pres. Buchanan and the Governor 
of Missouri offer reward for his arrest, 371; 
returns to Kansas with freed slaves, 371, 372; 
prepares to repel counter-invasion, 373; in 
camp on Turkey Creek, 373; at Osawatomie, 
374; interview with G. A. Crawford, 374, 375; 
his "Parallels " published in N. Y. Tribune, 
375, 376; denounced by Gov. Medary and 
censured by Kansas Legislature, 376, 377; 
his presence in Kansas the cause of excite- 
ment and strife, 378; effect of Missouri raid 
on his Virginia plans, 378; his friends not 
fully informed as to the trifling results of his 
last visit to Kansas, 378, 379; peace restored 
there as soon as he had gone, 379; leaves Osa- 
watomie Jan. 20, 1859, 379; reticence in let- 
ters to his family, 379; travels north through 
Kansas with freed slaves, 379-383; case of 
Dr. Doy, 380; finances recruited at Lawrence, 
380; pursued, 381; the " Battle of the Spurs," 
and his escape, 381-383; the terror of his 
name, 382; leaves Kansas for the last time, 
Feb. 2, 1859, 383; receives a cool welcome at 
Tabor, 384; requests church there to offer 
thanksgiving for himself and his freed slaves, 
384; addresses public meeting, 385; Dr. 
Brown of St. Joseph, 385; disgusted with 
timid resolutions of Tabor meeting, 385; from 
Tabor to Springdale, 386, 387; at J. B. Grin- 
nell's, 3S6; " coals of tire " message to back- 
sliders in Tabor, 387; leaves Springdale, 387, 
389; attempt to arrest him, 388; his claim on 
the arms remaining at Tabor, 388. 389; jour- 
neys with freed slaves to Chicago, Detroit, 
and Canada line, 389, 390; lectures in Cleve- 
land (March), 391; his person and lecture de- 
scribed by " Artemus Ward," 391-393; his 
account of his doings in Kansas and the Mis- 
souri raid, 392,393, 635 n. 116; remark about 
" fence stakes," 393; Cleveland Leader's re- 
port of the lecture, 393; his " converted " cat- 
tle, 393; his contempt for the U. S. authori- 
ties, 393; reward offered for his capture, 393, 
394; lectures in Jefferson, O., 394; reticent 
with Giddings, 394; with Gerrit Smith at 
Peterboro, N. Y., 39s; ill at No. Elba, 395; at 
Concord, Mass., with Sanborn, 395, 396; 
everything ready for the great blow, 396; 
meetings with secret committee in Boston, 
397; address in Concord (May, 1859), 398; 
A. B. Alcott's impressions, 398; and John M. 
Forbes's, 398,399; conversation with Senator 
Wilson as to Missouri raid, 399; A. A. Law- 
rence's diary quoted as to him, 400; meets 
Gov. Andrew, 400; last public appearance in 
the North, 400; leaves Boston, June 3, 400; 
negotiations with Blair for pikes, 400, 401; 
again at No. Elba for the last time, 401 ; with 
John, Jr. at West Andover, O., 401. 

Harper's Ferry. — Preparing for attack 
on Virginia, without mentioning his real plan, 
402; in Ohio and Penn., 402; leaves Penn. 
for " the seat of war," June 30, 1859, 402; 
at Hagerstown (Md.), 402, 403; in quarters 
at Sandy Hook near Harper's Ferry, July 3, 
403; reconnoitring in Maryland, 403; looking 
for land to buy, 403; rents Kennedy Farm 
and moves thither, 403, 404; desires to have 
women on hand to avert suspicion, 40S ; joined 
by daughter Annie, and daughter-in-law 
(Oliver's wife) 405; short of funds again, 406; 
arms forwarded by John, Jr., 406.407; his suc- 
cess endangered by inquisitiveness of neigh- 
bors and indiscretion of his men, 408; dreads 
Cook's loquacity, 408; disturbed by defection 
of Gill and Carpenter, 409 ; his plan denounced 
to Sec'y of War Floyd, by anonymous cor- 
respondent, 410; story of the anonymous let- 
ter and its purpose, 411, 412; financial diffi- 
culties solved by F. J. Meriam and others. 



412, 421; his plan disapproved by F. Doug- 
lass, 412, 413; his chagrin at Douglass's de- 
fection, 413; other disappointments, 413; 
members of the "Provisional Government " 
assembled at Kennedy Farm, 414, 415; their 
confidence in him, 416; Mrs. Annie ISrown 
Adams's description of life at the farm, 416- 
420; sends the women away, 420; frequent 
absences from the farm during the summer, 
420; assigns Meriam to duty of guarding arms 
left at the farm, 421 ; imminence of the attack 
foreshadowed in his letters to Kagi and John, 
Jr., 422, 423; last obstacle to attack removed 
by Meriam, 423; his previous delay discussed, 
424; was the raid unduly delayed or unduly 
hastened? 424. 

Leaves Kennedy Farm for the Ferry, Oct. 
16, 426; disposition of his forces, 426, 427; he 
alone had faith in his purpose, 427; no plan of 
campaign beyond seizing the town, 427, 438; 
seemed bent on violating every military prin- 
ciple, 427; had no well-defined purpose in at- 
tacking Harper's Ferry e.\cept to begin his 
revolution in a spectacular way, 427; attack 
on arsenal, etc., described in detail, 429 seqq.; 
his remark to the first prisoner, 430; Geo. 
Washington's sword and pistol, 431; speech 
to Col. L. Washington, 432; his orders as to 
avoiding bloodshed violated at the outset, 433 ; 
first alarm given prematurely for that reason, 
434; fails to allow for the spirit of the people, 
434; his men take many prisoners, 437; urged 
by Kagi to leave Harper's Ferry, 438; why did 
he not escape while there was time? 43S; soon 
put on the defensive, 438 ; cut oft' from his men 
in the rifle works and tlie arsenal, 439; at bay 
in the fire-engine house, 439, 440; kindly 
treatment of his prisoners, 443; last avenue of 
escape cut off, 443; surrounded in engine 
house by increasing numbers of troops, 444; 
his reply to a summons to surrender, 447; in- 
terview with Capt. Sinn, 448; " I have 
weighed the responsibility and shall not 
shrink from it," 447; death of Oliver Brown, 
448; but five men alive and unwounded, 449; 
betrays no trepidation, 449; two of the five 
refuse to fight more, 449; Lieut. Stuart, for 
Col. Lee, demands his surrender, 450, 451; his 
refusal and its result, 451; engine house 
stormed by Lieut. Green, 452 seqq.; his brav- 
ery at the supreme moment, 453; attacked 
and wounded by Lieut. Green, 453; his escape 
from death due to lightness of Green's sword, 
453, 454; not seriously wounded, 455; Gov. 
Wise quoted concerning him, 455; his " inter- 
view " with Gov. Wise and others immedi- 
ately after his capture, as reported in N. Y. 
Herald, 456-463; circumstances of his surren- 
der, 461, 462 and notes; colloquy with Gov. 
Wise, 463; his act compared with Wise's con- 
duct in 1861, 465, 466; his correspondence 
left at Kennedy Farm, 467; portions of it read 
to the crowd after the raid, 460, 470; removed 
to jail at Charlestown, 470; his survival for- 
tunate for the cause he had at heart, 471; his 
act discussed in Democratic and Republican 
press, 471 seqq.; gradual change of attitude of 
latter toward the raid, 473, 474; southern 
opinion concerning B, 474-476; possibility of 
a speedy trial, 476, 477; question of jurisdic- 
tion raised, 477; before the magistrates, 479, 
486; was his trial unduly hastened? 479-482; 
in court on a couch, 470, 480, 481, 488; ques- 
tion of counsel, 483-485; the prosecuting at- 
torneys, 485; committed for trial, 486; his 
speech on that occasion, 487; indicted by 
Grand Jury, Oct. 26, for treason to Virginia, 
488; appeals for delay on account of wounds, 
488, 489; the trial jury empanelled, 489; sug- 
gestion of insanity in his family, 489, 506-510, 



7i8 



INDEX 



[John Brown 



595 n. 33, 647 n. 100; declines to avail himself 
of insanity plea, 490, 507 ; his suggestions to 
his counsel, 490, 491 ; renewed appeal for de- 
lay because of absence of witnesses, 491, 492; 
denounces his counsel, 492; correspondence 
with Judges Tilden and Russell, 493; takes 
a hand in examining witnesses, 494; accused 
by Hunter of feigning illness, 495; Hoyt 
Quoted concerning B's character and bearing, 
495, 496; found guilty of treason, 496; how he 
received the verdict, 496; his vision of the fu- 
ture, 496; " I am worth inconceivably more 
to hang than for any other purpose," 496, 
546; his great speech to the court before sen- 
tence, 498, 499; sentenced to be hanged pub- 
licly on Dec. 2, 1859, 499; delay of execution 
affords opportunity to influence public opin- 
ion in the North, 499; diversity of opinion 
concerning execution of sentence, 500 seqq.; 
Gov. Wise declines to interfere with sentence, 
S03, 504; question of commutation of sen-' 
tence discussed, 506; plots to rescue, 511 seqq.; 
declines to lend himself to any scheme of res- 
cue, 512; his pledge to Capt. Avis, 512; for- 
bids his wife to visit him, 513; anonymous 
letters to, relating to plans of rescue, and 
their effect, 518; precautions taken for his ex- 
ecution, 522 seqq.; predicament and attitude 
of his Northern supporters, 528 seqq.; Dr. 
Howe's card concerning the raid, 531-533; 
B's bearing after judgment, 536, 537; permis- 
sion to write freely a dangerous weapon in his 
hands, 538; tremendous power and influence 
of his letters from the jail, 538, 539; detailed 
reports of his life in jail spread through the 
country, 544 seqq.; conversation with Rev. 
Norval Wilson, 544; his visitors, 545-548; vis- 
ited by H. C. Pate, 546; and by Gov. Wise, 
547, S48; universal confidence in his veracity 
and integrity, 547; writes to A. Hunter, 548; 
his real object, 548; last interview with his 
wife, 550; last injunctions to his family, 551- 
553; gives his Bible to J. H. Blessing, 553; his 
various wills, 553, 667-670; emotion of his 
guards, 554; the journey to the scaffold, 554 
seqq.; prophetic message to his countrymen, 
554; on the scaffold, 556; his execution, 557, 
653 n. 13; his body delivered to his wife and 
taken to No. Elba, 559, 561 ; and there buried, 
561, 562; views of prominent men North and 
South concerning him and his raid, 562 seqq.; 
and of representative newspapers, 568, 569; 
Victor Hugo quoted concerning him, 569, 
588; report of the minority of the Mason 
committee, 5S0, 581; and of the majority, 
58 1, 582; his name involved in speakership 
contest, 583, 584; divergent views of B and 
his achievements fifty years after, 586; the 
truth lies between the extreme views, 586; 
a fanatic, but one of those fanatics who, by 
their readiness to sacrifice their lives, are for- 
ever advancing the world, 587; brave, kind, 
honest, truth-telling, God-revering, 588 : his 
rise to spiritual greatness after his sentence, 
588; a great and lasting figure in American 
history, 588; the lesson of his life, 588, 589. 

Chronology of his movements, Aug. 1855 
to his death, 672-678; details as to his " men- 
at-arms " at Harper's Ferry, 678-687. 

Letters to Rev. S. L. Adair, 136, 303, 
306, Geo. Adams, 542, E. B., 539, Wm. 
Barnes, 276, 283, Jesse Bowen, 388, Ellen 
Brown, 398, Frederick Brown, 43, John 
Brown, Jr., 34, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70, 79, 
86 and n., 343, 353, 354-356, 358, 407, 409. 
422, 423, Mary Anne Brown.^ 29, 30, 35, 64, 

* Most of these letters were written to Mrs. 
Brown and such of the children as were with 
her: " My dear wife and children every one." 



89, 118-120, 127, 128, 132, 148, 203, 248, 278, 
282, 292, 299. 320, 337, 3S8, 36s, 383, 395. 398, 
404, 409, 422, 537, S40, 541. 542, 551. 553. 
Levi Burnell, 32, 33, Amos P. Chamberlain, 
40, Lydia Maria Child, 249, his children, 69, 
John W. Cook. 8s, J. T. Cox, 361, Orson Day, 
123, 127, J. R. Giddings, 131, G. B. Gill, 337, 
T. W. Higginson, 320, S13, 543. W. A. Hodges, 
72, L. Humphrey, 543. A. Hunter, 548, J. H. 
Kagi, 397. 402, 406, 408, Geo. Kellogg, 31, 
Zenas Kent, 26, J. H. Lane, 301, A. A. Law- 
rence, 279, Rev. Mr. McFarland, 545, Theo. 
Parker, 324. S. Perkins, 59, F. B. Sanborn, 
294, 302, 319, 320, 322, 353, 354, Geo. L. 
Stearns, 281, 305, 320, Mrs. Stearns, 551, 
H. L. Stearns, 1-7, John Teesdale, 93, 386, 
Eli Thayer, 287, Ruth B. Thompson, 324, 
Aug. Wattles, 290, 292. 

Letters from John Brown, Jr., 82, 83, 
229 n., 290, Mahala Doyle, 164, T. W. Hig- 
ginson, 338, 397, J- H. Holmes, 300, J. H. 
Lane, 300, 301, 304, A. A. Lawrence, 280, C. 
Robinson, 262, 263, H. Stratton, 235 n., Aug. 
Wattles, 30, Horace White, 269. 

Brown, John, autobiography of, 43, 86, 87. 

Brown, John, children of, general characteris- 
tics, 21. 

Brown, John, Jr., oldest son of B, quoted con- 
cerning B and the Free Masons, 26; his con- 
flicting statements as to date of B's requiring 
his family to swear to fight slavery, 46; in 
Springfield office of Perkins and Brown, 59; 
goes to Kansas, 75, 76; his narrative of the 
expedition, in the Cleveland Leader (1883), 
81,82; describes conditions in Kansas and rec- 
ommends arming anti-slaverymen there, 83, 
84; his " shanty " at Osawatomie, 89; and the 
Indians, 90; vice-president of Free State con- 
vention at Lawrence, 91; member of first 
Territorial Executive Com., 91 ; defies penal 
code of Shawnee Legislature, 92; at Free 
State convention, 102; at convention of 
radical Free State men, 103; nominated for 
Territorial legislature, 127, and elected, 130; 
incident of the claim-jumper, 130; attends 
session of Legislature, 132, 133; on committee 
to memorialize Congress for admission of 
Kansas to statehood, 133; other legislative 
service of, 133; on B's surveying tour, 136; in 
Judge Cato's court, 136; his article in the 
Cleveland Leader (1883), quoted, 149, 152, 
153; and the Pottawatomie murders, 149 
seqq.; camps at Prairie City, en route to re- 
lief of Lawrence, 149, 150; camp broken up by 
U. S. cavalry, 150; deposed from command by 
company, for freeing two slaves, 150; another 
reason for his deposition, 151; vainly opposes 
return of slaves to their masters,! 51 ; returns 
to camp after the murders, 165; his feeling 
concerning them, 166; returns to Osawa- 
tomie with " Pottawatomies," 166; taken in 
by the Adairs, 166; his distress deprives him 
of reason, 166, 167; affirms the reality of the 
unidentified " messenger," 175; charges Rob- 
inson with urging his father to other killings, 
184; arrested, 193; maltreated by Border 
Ruffians after arrest, 194 seqq.; driven on 
foot from Paola to Osawatomie, 195; his con- 
dition of mind and body, 195, 196; treatment 
of, causes indignation in North, 197; taken to 
Lecompton and held in custody on charge of 
high treason, 197; Capt. Walker's testimony 
concerning him and B, 228, 229; released 
September 10, 1856, 254, 255; goes to Iowa 
with B, 261; controversy with Gov. Robin- 
son, 263; with B, in Chicago, 269; disturbed 
by B's proposed return to Kansas, 290; hia 
views of the situation there, 291; with Bin 
Philadelphia, 323; entrusted with forwarding 
of arms to Chambersburg, Pa., 406, 407; his 



INDEX 



719 



mental condition, 406, 413, 414; effect of his 
aberration, 414; has ill-success in obtaininK 
recruits, 414; warned by Kagi and B of immi- 
nence of attack on Harper's Ferry, 422, 423; 
his extraordinary statements, 423; his mental 
derangement, 507; reviews his. father's busi- 
ness mistakes, 593 n. 33; ig, 28, 36, 30, S6, 81, 
86, 106, 112, 118, 120, 121, 148, 178, 198, 207, 
210, 233, 249, 262, 277, 343, 396, 397, 401, 
402, 424, S16, S18, 533, 582, 6oi n. 95. Letters 
to B, 82, 83, 222, 290, Jason Brown, 222, 
Mary Anne Brown, 92, HughForbes,3i8, J. H. 
Kagi, 413, F. B. Sanborn, 45; /row B, 34, 66, 
67. 86 and n., 353, 354-356, 3S8, 407, 409, 
C. W. Tayleure, 454. 455- 

Brown, John Carter, jSo. 

Brown, Capt. John E., commands pro-slavery 
force at Sugar Creek, 238. 

Brown, Mrs. John E., 23S. 

Brown, Mrs. Martha E. (Brewster), wife of 
Oliver, starts for Harper's Ferry, 405; sent 
away, with her sister-in-law, 420; 417, 418, 
419, 422, s6i. 

Brown, Mrs. Mary Anne (Day), second wife of 
B, 24; mother of thirteen children, 25; her 
sacrifices for the cause to which B gave his 
life, 25; described by R. H. Dana, Jr., 74; B 
appeals to A. A. Lawrence in behalf of, 280; 
unwilling to join B at Harper's Ferry, 405; 
urged by T. W. Higginson, starts to visit B 
after sentence, in order to obtain his consent 
to rescue, 513; is turned back by B, 513; 
writes to Gov. Wise, 549; at Harper's Ferry, 
549; last interview with B, 550; B's body de- 
hvered to, 558; 36, 43, 45, 46, 53, 76, 88, 277. 
545, 546, 548, 555. 560, 570, 574- Letters from 
B, 128, 148, 248, 278, 282, 299, 320, 337, 
358, 36s, 383. 398, 404. 409, 422, 537, 540, 
541, 542, 551, 553, Mrs. Jason Brown, 112, 
Mrs. John Brown, Jr., 127, Gov. H. A. Wise, 
549. 

Brown, Mrs. Mary E. (Grant). See Grant, 
Mary E. 

Brown, Rev. Nathan, 15. 

Brown, O. C, founder of Osawatomie, reproves 
Pottawatomie murderers, 167; quoted, con- 
cerning the reign of terror in Osawatomie, 
214, and the power of B's name, 230; his safe 
robbed, 246. 

Brown, Old Man, name often applied to B. See 
Brown, John, of Osawatomie. 

Brown, Oliver, son of B, goes to Kansas, 76; in- 
cident of the claim-jumper, 130; on B's sur- 
veying tour, 133; in the Pottawatomie party, 
153; his hands unstained, 158; his contest 
with B, 223; starts for Harper's Ferry with B, 
402; mortally wounded, 441; his death, 448; 
sketch of, 6S3, 684; 81 n., 86, 112, 118, 160, 
198, 210, 222, 404, 405, 419, 420, 422, 432, 
438, 439, 441. 537, 553. 558, 570. 

Brown, Owen, father of B, descent of, i; in the 
War of 18 12, 4; quoted concerning his mo- 
ther, 11; stood well with everybody, 11; in 
one locality in Ohio 51 years, 12; marries 
Ruth Mills, 12; early married life of, at Can- 
ton, Norfolk and Torrington, Conn., and 
Hudson, Ohio, 12, 13; describes conditions in 
Ohio, 13; marries (2) Sallie Root, and (3) 
Lucy Hinsdale, 14; how he became an Aboli- 
tionist, 14; an agent of the Underground Rail- 
road 14; ceases to support Western Reserve 
College, is; trustee of Oberlin College, 15; 
loses heavily in B's insolvency, 28; an early 
subscriber to the Liberator, 49; his philosophy 
of marriage, 591 n. 10; his autobiography 
(MS.) quoted, II, 12-14; 30, 31, 43, 507. Let- 
ter to B, II. 

Brown, Owen, son of B, goes to Kansas, 76, 81; 
in B's Pottawatomie party, 153; personally 
Concerned in Doyle murders, 160; and the 



murder of Sherman, 162, 163, 164; denied 
shelter by Adair, 167; goes to Iowa with B, 
261; leaves Tabor for Kansas with B, 299; 
elected " Treasurer " at Chatham conven- 
tion, 333; starts for Harper's Ferry with B, 
402; left on guard at Kennedy Farm, 426; 
escapes, 471; sketch of, 686; his diary, 
quoted, 31 1,3 1 2, 315,3 16; 19, 39, 45, 46, 72, 75. 
83, 120, 121, 165, 197, 198, 202, 208, 220, 222, 
262, 270, 294, 298, 302, 308, 329, 330, 343, 
344. 397. 402, 406, 407, 414, 41S, 416, 418, 
421, 424, 437, 44''. 4f>8. 

Brown. Peter, of Windsor, Conn., ancestor of 
B, not the Mayflower Peter, 10, 591 n. 6. 

Brown, Peter, of the Mayflower, 10, 543. 

Brown, Capt. Reese P., killed at Leavenworth, 
129. 133, 180, 352. 

Brown, Ruth, daughter of B. See Thompson, 
Mrs. Ruth (Brown). 

Brown, Mrs. Ruth (Mills), mother of B, 3, 12; 
death of (180S), 3, 13; descent of, 15; insan- 
ity in family of, 507. 

Brown, Mrs. Sallie (Root), stepmother of B, 3, 
16. 

Brown, Salmon, brother of B, 12, 14. 

Brown, Salmon, son of B, goes to Kansas, 76; in 
Judge Cato's court, 135, 136; concerning B's 
surveying tour, 137; concerning the Pottawa- 
tomie plan, 151, 152; in the Pottawatomie 
party, 153; reports effect of news of assault on 
Sumner, 154; as to the time chosen for mur- 
ders, i55;astoTownsley and Weiner, 1 57, 158; 
as to attack on Dcyles, 159 seqq.; personally 
concerned in latter, 160; as to murders of 
Wilkinson and W. Sherman, 162, 164; denies 
that Judge Wilson was on proscribed list, 165; 
denies that there was a " messenger," 175; or 
that Pottawatomie victims were " tried " by 
jury, 184; accidentally wounded after Black 
Jack, 203, 210; describes contest between B 
and Oliver, 223; second visit to Kansas, 269, 
270; declines to join B at Harper's Ferry, 413; 
his reasons for declining, 424; as to B's pecu- 
liarities, 424; as to " retreat " from Kansas in 
1856, 616 n. 68; 20, 24, 54, 56, 72, 81 and n., 
83, 91, 120, 121, 128, 149, 168 n., 173, 177, 
183, 198, 202, 222, 405, 561. Letter to B, 82, 
Rev. Joshua Young, 612, n. 90. 

Brown, Sarah, daughter of B, and the plan to 
attack Harper's Ferry, 55; quoted, concern- 
ing Watson Brown, 683; 405, 533. 

Brown, Spencer Kellogg, 244, 246, 250. 

Brown, Rev. Theodore, alias of T. W. Higgin- 
son, 573, 576. 

Brown, Watson, son of B, not personally con- 
cerned in Pottawatomie murders, 159; his first 
journey to Kansas, 269, 270; turns back at 
Tabor, and goes with B to North Elba, 270; 
starts for Harper's Ferry, 405; mortally 
wounded carrying flag of truce, 439; his death 
described by C. W. Tayleure, 454, 455; 
sketch of, 686; 20, 58, 72, 76, 407, 409, 414, 
419, 448, 449. 537. 553. 558 and n., 570. Let- 
ters to Mrs. Isabella Brown, 415, 416; from 
Mrs. Wealthy Brown, 92. 

Brown, Mrs. V/ealthy, wife of John Jr., describes 
conditions at Osawatomie, 88; 118. Letters 
to John Jr., 172, Mary Anne Brown, 88, 89, 
127, Watson Brown, 92. 

" Brown and Thompson's addition to Franklin 
Village," 27, 28. 

Brown settlement, near Osawatomie, various 
names of, 112. 

Brown's Station, temporary name of Brown set- 
tlement, 1 12. 

Browne, Charles F. See Ward, Artemus. 

Browne, William Hand, his Maryland, the His- 
tory of a Palatinate, quoted, 475- 

Brownsville, temporary name of Brown settle- 
ment, 82, 112. 



720 



INDEX 



Bnia, Joseph A., 438, 439, 440, 443. 

Brussels, visited by B, 62. 

Bryant, Joseph, and Hugh Forbes, 286; 293. 

Buchanan, James, Pres. of U. S., and Gov. 
Walker, 205; oti'ers reward for capture of B, 
371; notified by Garrett, of Harper's Ferry 
raid, 434; orders artillery and marines thither, 
449, and Robert E. Lee and J. E. B. Stuart, 
4S0; message to Congress in Dec., 1859, 566; 
374. 381, 478, 523, 524. 

" Buckskin," 233. 

Bu£fum, Dsvid C, murdered, 260. 

Buford, Major Jefferson, in command of Border 
Ruffians in Kansas, 137, 138; his pro-slavery 
circular, 216; appeals for aid, 231; 144, 146, 
150, 192. 

Bunyan, John, the Pilgrim's Progress familiar 
to B, 16. 

Burlington (Iowa) Gazette, denounces Potta- 
watomie murders, 191. 

Burlington Mills Co., suit against Perkins and 
Brown, 66. 

Burnell, Levi, treasurer of Oberlin College, 32. 
Letters from B, 32, 33. 

Burns, Anthony, fugitive slave, 384, 511. 

Burns, Col. James N., disputes Major Clarke's 
claim to have murdered Barber, 126. 

Burns, John, 520. 

Butler, Rev. Pardee, maltreated by pro-slavery 
men, no; stripped and "cottoned," 141. 

Buxton, Canada, 327. 

Byrne, Terence, captured by B's raiders, 437, 
439. 

Cabot, James Elliot, .4 Memoir of Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, quoted, 282. 

Cabot, Dr. Samuel, Jr., 271, 275, 325. 

Cackler, Christian, the Recollections of an Old 
."^titter, quoted, 9. 

Calais (France), visited by B, 61. 

Calhoun, John, 296, 307. 

California, rush of gold-seekers tc'^O. 

Callender, W. H. D., 278, 279, 286. 

Campbell, Bishop, 59. 

Campbell, John F., murdered by Hamilton and 
his men, 348, 375- 

Campbell, Sheriff, 537. 538, 539, 556. 

Canterbury (Conn.), suppression of schools for 
negroes in, 45. 

Canton (Conn.), 278, 279. 

Cantrall, Mr., murder of, 181, 213; mock trial 
of, by court-martial, 213. 

Carleton, Silas, 533, 534. 

Carpenter, Henry, defection of, 409; 576. 

Carpenter, Howard, 198. 

Carpenter, O. A., guides B's Pottawatomie 
party to Ottawa Creek, 198; 210. 

Carr, a settler, 239, 242. 

Carr, Lieut. Eugene A., 621 n. 86. 

Carrington, Gen. Henry B., quoted, 47. 

Carruth, James H., 167. 

Carter, Mr., murder of, 214. 

Carter, Charles P., alias of T. W. Higginson, 
573- 

Carter, T. W., agent of Mass. Arms Co., 289. 

Case, A. H., quoted, 601 n. 104. 

Cass, Lewis, Sec'y of State, letters from Gov. 
Denver, 351, Acting-Gov. Walsh, 364. 

Castele, A., 168. 

Cato, Judge Sterling G., holds court at Sher- 
man settlement, 135, 136; issues warrants 
for arrest of the Browns, 135; 137, 195, 254, 
260. 

Central Committee for Kansas, 275. 

Chadwick, Rear-Adm. French E., the Causes of 
the Civil War, quoted, 341. 

Chamberlain, Amos P., and the title to West- 
lands, 38 seqq.; B's quarrel with, 39-41, 593 
n. 49. Letter from B, 40. 

Chambers, George "W., shoots A. D. Stevens, 



439; and the killing of W. Thompson, 442; 
491. 

Chambersburg (Penn.), Kagi's headquarters at, 
406, 407. 

Chapin, Messrs., 278. 

Chapin, Lou V., Last Days of Old John Brown, 
quoted, 36. 

Charleston Convention, i860, 585. 

Charleston Courier, quoted, 97. 

Charleston Independent Democrat, B quoted 
in, 545. 

Charleston Mercury, quoted, 97, 568. 

Charles Town (West Va.), 429. And see Charles- 
town. 

Charlestown (Va.), news of raid carried to, by 
Dr. Starry, 436; dread of a slave rising, 436; 
militia and other volunteers turn out, 436; B 
and others lodged in jail, 470; trial of B, 486 
seqq.; reception of verdict, 497; self-control 
of people after sentence, 499, 500; proposed 
attack on, 516 seqq.; rescue scares, 519, 520; 
numerous fires, 520; end of reign of terror, 
522; preparations for execution, 522 seqq. 

" Charley." See Kaiser, Charles. 

Chase, Salmon P., Gov. of Ohio, 271 and n., 
298, 524. 

Chatham (Canada), convention of B's followers 
there, 330 seqq.; really two conventions, 331; 
327, 328. 

Chatham Convention, proceedings of, 330 seqq.; 
oath of secrecy imposed, m; " Provisional 
Constitution " adopted, 333; second conven- 
tion called under new constitution, 333; offi- 
cers elected at, 333; list of colored men in at- 
tendance, 628 n. 55. 

Chicago Tribune, 46, 352. 

Child, D. Lee, 293. 

Child, Lydia Maria, her proposed visit to B, 479 
n.; sio. Letter to Gov. Wise, 479. 

Chilton, Samuel, retained by John A. Andrew 
to defend B, 493; prays that government be 
required to elect on which count they will 
proceed. 494, 49s; argues for defence, 496; 
motion in arrest of judgment, 497. 

Chippewa Indians, 9. 

Church Anti-Slavery Society, B at meeting in 
Boston, 400. 

Church, Lieut. John R., breaks up John Brown, 
Jr.'s camp, 150. 

Claim-Jumper, a, e.xpulsion of, by rainute-men, 
130. 

Clark, Malcolm, killed by C. McCrea. 109. no. 

Clark, Rev. Wm. C. assault on. in. 

Clarke, Major Geo. E., soi-disant murderer of 
Barber, 126, 352. 

Clarke, James Freeman, Anti-Slavery Days, 
Gen. Carrington quoted in, 47 ; his characteri- 
zation of B. 186, 187; 213, 326, 327. 

Clarke, Wm. Penn, 388, 390. 

Clay, C. C. quoted. 584. 

Cleveland (Ohio), public sentiment in, 394. 

Cleveland Herald, quoted, 569. 

Cleveland Leader, John Brown, Jr.'s statement 
in (1883), 81, 82, 149; announces B's lecture, 
March 18, 1859, 391; its report of the lec- 
ture, 393; and the raid, 472. 

Cleveland Plain Dealer, " Artemus Ward's " de- 
scription of B and Kagi in, 391, 392; and of 
jB's lecture, 392, 393. 

Cline, Capt. James B., his company marches 
south from Osawatomie with B, 236: meets 
pro-slavery force at South Middle Creek and 
puts it to flight, 237; accidental collision with 
B's company, 237; in battle of Osawatomie, 
244; 238, 239, 249. 

Cochrane, Benjamin. 200, 293. 

Cochren, Benjamin L., 121. 

Coffee, Gen., and Col. Sumner, 209. 

Coffin, W. H. The Settlement of the Friends in 
Kaytsas, 192. 



INDEX 



721 



Coine. W. W., 121. 

Colby. Deputy Marshal, 381. 

Coleman, E. A., reports B's words justifying 
Pottawatomie murders, 179. 

Coleman, Franklin N., murderer of C. Dow, 
113; political consequences of his act, 113 
seqq.; suspected of sliooting Stewart, 142. 

Coleman, William, 343- 

Collamer, Jacob, U. S. Senator from V'ermont, 
of minority of Mason Committee, 5S0. 

Collins, Samuel, shot by P. Laughlin, 112, 113, 
iSo. 

Collinsville (Conn.), 278, 279. 

CoUis, Daniel W., 121. 

Columbia (Mo.) Statesman, 09. 

Colpetzer, William, murdered by Hamilton's 
gang, 348, 375- 

Colt, Mrs. M. D., Went to Kansas, 89 n. 

Concord (Mass.), B's address at, in May, 1859, 
398; arrest of F. B. Sanborn at. 533. 534; 

Congress of the U. S., and the Lecompton Con- 
stitution, 347; passes the English compro- 
mise, 347- 

Conkling, Rev. Mr., 68. 

Contempt of court, extraordinary charge of, 
made bv Sheriff Jones, 140. 

Conway, Martin F., Free State leader, loi, 103. 
106, 272, 277, 282, 293, 296, 359, 360. 

Cook, Gen. Joe, alias of J. H. Lane, 225, 231, 
235 n., 252. „ ^ . , TT 

Cook, John E., B s first recruit for Harper s 
Ferry, 307, 308; his confession, 308, 680; de- 
scribes B's recruiting operations, 308; has 
words with B about Virginia plan, 310, 311; 
corresponds with friends in Springdale, 330; 
his indiscretion, 338; sent to Harper's Ferry 
to reconnoitre, in June. 1858. 344; lock- 
tender there. 408; his perilous loquacity. 408; 
with the rear-guard, 446. 447; arrested in 
Penn.. 487; convicted and sentenced, 569, 
570; executed, after almost escaping, 570- 
572; sketch of, 680, 681; 142, 215, 216, 315, 
329, 412, 415, 419, 426, 427, 429, 431, 435, 
437, 468, 469, 471. 477, 478, 483, 510, 531. 

554- 

Cook, John W., letter from B, 84. 

Cooke, Lt.-Col. Philip St. George, reports as to 
changed conditions in Kansas, 213, 214; de- 
clines to obey Woodson's order to invest To- 
peka, 250. 251; and Lane and Walker's de- 
monstration against Lecompton, 252; his 
good advice to them rejected, 252; escorts 
Gov. Geary to Lawrence, 257; with Gov. 
Geary averts threatened attack on Lawrence, 
259; narrowly misses arresting B, 261; 211, 
217, 258, 260. 

Cooper Union, New York, great meeting in, 562. 

Copeland, John Anthony, Jr., in the Harper's 
Ferrv party, 41S. 421. 43i; captured. 44s ^ 
saved from being lynched by Dr. Starry. 445; 
convicted and sentenced. 569. 57o; executed, 
570; sketch of, 684; 454, 486, 572. 

Coppoc, Barclay, joins B at Sprmgdale, 328, 
3 9; in Harper's Ferry party, 414, 420, 421; 
left on guard at Kennedy Farm, 426; final 
escape of, 471; sketch of, 682, 683; 446, 468, 
571. 

Coppoc. Edwin, joins B at Springdale, 328, 329; 
in Harper's Ferry party, 414. 42i, 426, 430, 
441, 449; kills Mayor Beckham, 441; made 
prisoner in engine house, 454; trial of, 497; 
convicted and sentenced, 569, S7o; commuta- 
tion of sentence prevented by his letter to 
Mrs. Brown, 570; executed after almost escap- 
ing, 570-572; sketch of, 682; 470, 471, 4S6. 

Coppoc, Mrs., mother of Barclay and Edwin, 

329, 571- „ ^ 

Cox, J. T., letter from B, 301. 
Cracklin, Capt. Jos., in command of defence of 

Lawrence, 258. 



Craft, Ellen, 384. 

Crafts and Still, letter from Perkins and Brown, 

5ij. 
Crane, Smith, and his tale of rescuers from 

Kansas, 520, .S2i. 
Cransdell. Archie, shoots Dutch Henry Sher- 
man, 236. 
Crawford, Geo. A., his interview with B in Jan. 

1859, 374. 375;370. LellcrsloEVl Thayer, 374. 

6cj« n. 12. 
Cromwell, Oliver, life of, one of the books which 

inlluenced B, i6. 
Cross, Mr., taken prisoner by the raiders, 439- 
Cruise, David, murdered by A. D. Stevens in 

Missouri raid. 3<jy; great excitement caused 

l)y his death. 370. 
Curtis. Geo. William, quoted, 563. S64- 
Gushing, Caleb, on the law of B's case, 644 n. 

28; 565. 
Cutter, George, a Free State settler, 239. 242; 

seriously wounded, 243. 
Cyrus, negro boy, 75- 

Daingerfield, J. E. P., paymaster's clerk of the 
armory at Harper's Ferry, 439, 443; his con- 
versation with B, 443- 

Dana, Richard H., Jr., How we met John Brown, 
quoted, 74; entertained by B at No. Elba, 74; 
his description of B, his family, and his home, 

74- 
Daniels, Jim, slave, whose appeal led to B's 

Missouri raid, 3^7, 3()8, 376. 
Davenport, Col. Braxton, presiding justice at 

preliminary hearing in case of B and others, 

487. 
David, Wdliam, 293. 
Davis, Henry, Border Ruffian, killed by Lucius 

Kibbey, 109. 
Davis, Jefferson, as Sec'y of War, censures Col. 
Sumner, 217; and Col. Sumner. 217, 218, 
219; instructions to Gen. Smith, 251; as U. S. 
Senator from Miss., quoted, 565; joins in re- 
port of majority of Mason Committee, 580; 
130. Letter lo Col. Sumner, 218. 

Davis, Col. J. Lucius, quoted, 5i9, 520 and n.; 
521, 522. 

Davis, S. C letter from S. L. Adair, 253 n. 

Davis, Mrs. S. C, quoted, 270 n. 

Day. Charles, father of B's second wife, 24. 

Day, Horace H., 178. 

Day, Mary Anne, married to B (1833), 24, 25. 
See Brown, Mary Anne (Day). Sister of 

Day. Orson. 71. 148, 178. Letters from B, 123, 127. 

Dayton, Oscar V., secretary of settlers' meetmg 
at Osawatomie, i35- 

Deitzler, Geo. W., indicted for treason, 142; 
arrested, 145; 98. ,. . , r 

Delahay, Mark W., Free Soil candidate for 
delegate in Congress, 129. 

Delamater, Geo. B.. 24. 46. 

Delany, Dr. Martin R.. colored, 328, 331, 333- 

Democratic pro-slavery press, and the Potta- 
watomie murders, 191; and the Harpers 
Ferry raid, 471. 472. 

Democrats, Northern, vote for Kansas-Ne- 
braska Act, 80. . ^ , r' 

Denver, James Wilson. Acting-Gov. and Gov. 
of Kansas, adjusts troubles growing out of 
Marais des Cygnes massacre. 349, 35o; hos- 
tile to Montgomery. 35i; his peace compact 
substantially renewed by Sugar Mound Con- 
vention. 366; 346, 364. 376. Letter to Secretary 
Cass. 351- 

Des Moines (Iowa), 387- 

Dix, John A.. 563. , , ,_• , 

Donaldson. J. B.. U. S. marshal, his proclama- 
tion to law-abiding citizens. 143; is sent hrst 
to pro-slaverv strongholds, 143; his forces 
composed of Border Ruffians, 144. I45; 144 n- 
180, 185, 211, 252, 254. 



722 



INDEX 



Doniphan (Kansas), scene of murder of Saml. 
Collins, 112. 

Doolittle, James R., U. S. Senator from Wiscon- 
sin, of minority of Mason Com., 580. 

Douglas, Stephen A., U. S. Senator from Illi- 
nois, favors Kansas-Nebraska Act, 80; and 
the Toombs bill, 227; opposed to Lecompton 
Constitution, 306, 347; quoted, 365; nomin- 
ated for President, 585. 

Douglass, Frederick, his Life and Times of 
Frederick Douglass, quoted, 47, 48, 57, 58; 
describes B's home in Springfield, Mass., and 
his personal aspect, 57. S8; urges contribu- 
tions for B, at Syracuse convention, 85; B's 
first confidant as to his Virginia plan, 317; B 
visits him early in 1858, 317; gives money to 
Forbes, 317; B's disappointment with him, 
323; feeling of B's family toward him, 323, 
627 n. 3i\ at final conference with B disap- 
proves plan of raid, 412, 413; withdraws his 
support from B, 413; leaves the country after 
the raid, 529; 67, 269, 390, 398. 

Dow, Charles, shot by F. N. Coleman, 1 13, 180. 

Doy, Dr. John, captured with his liberated 
slaves, and rescued, 380; 511, 514, 546, 575. 

Doyle, Mr., husband of Mahala, and father of 
Drury, John, and William; murder of, 159 
seqq. 

Doyle, Drury, murder of, 159 seqq. 

Doyle, John, quoted concerning Doyle murders, 
160; 164. 

Doyle, Mrs. Mahala, describes murder of her 
husband and sons, 158 seqq.; Salmon Brown 
concerning, 159; 156, 100, i95- Letter toB, 164. 

Doyle, William, murder of, 159 seqq. 

Doyle family, on Pottawatomie Creek, character 
of, 156; attack on, 158-161; John Doyle and 
Townsley concerning mutilation of their 
bodies, 160, 161; alleged intimidation by, 172; 
and the Morse case, 174; said by some to 
have deserved their fate, 180. 

Dunbar, Jennie (Mrs. Garcelon), 572. 

Duncan, L. A., 388. 

Dutch Henry. See Sherman. Henry. 

Dutch Henry's Crossing, 151, 155, 157. 

Duty of the Soldier, The, by Hugh Forbes, 297, 
298; disapproved by Sanborn and Theodore 
Parker, 298. 

Eastin, Brig.-Gen. Lucien J., publishes call to 
arms against Free State men, 116; Woodson's 
letter to him denounced as forgery, 116. 

Easton (Kansas), Leavenworth election held at 
(Jan. 1856), 128. 

Edwards, Rev. Jona., his works owned by B, 16. 

Eldredge, Col., 260. 

Eldridge, Charles, 574. 

Elections Committee of House of Representa- 
tives reports against Whitfield and in favor of 
Reeder as delegate, 226. 

Elgin Association, a colony for escaped slaves, 
327. 

Eliot, George, Adam Bede, 326. 

Elliott, R. G., quoted, 122, 230, 307. 

Ellsworth, Alfred M., elected member of Con- 
gress, at Chatham Convention, 333. 

Elmore, Rush, Justice of Kansas Terr., upholds 
legality of Shawnee Legislature, lOo; 377, 
378. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, meets B, 273; quoted, 
282, 560, 563 ; as to B's speech before sentence, 
6^6 n 81 ; 561. 

Em^igrant Aid Societies, New England, recruits 
of, in Kansas, 95, 96; 98, 265. 

Emigrant Aid Society, ships Sharp's rifles to 
C. Robinson, 98; saw-mill of, at Osawa- 
tomie spared by Border Ruffians, 246; 146, 
227. 

English bill. The, a compromise measure passed 
by Congress, 347 ; a pro-slavery victory, 347 ; 



a bribe to Kansas to accept Lecompton Con- 
stitution, 347. 

Epps, Lyman, colored neighbor of B at No. 
Elba, 55, 562. 

Erickson, Aaron, concerning B's insanity, 595 n 
33- 

Ervin, Dr., 369. 

Everett, Edward, 565. 

Executive Committee. See Free State Execu- 
tive Committee and Territorial Executive 
Committee. 

Fablinger, Mrs. Ellen (Brown), daughter of B. 
405. Letter from B, 398. 

Fain, U. S. Deputy Marshal, at Free State Ho- 
tel, 14s; makes arrests in Lawrence, 145. 

Fairfield, temporary name of Brown settlement 
near Osawatomie, 112. 

Faneuil Hall, Union meeting in, 562, 563, 565. 

Faulkner, Charles J., assigned as counsel for 
B, and declines, 483; his opinion of the trial, 
483; 456, 486, 487. Letter to M. W. Cluskey. 
4S3\from A. H. Lewis, 506. 

Fauquier Cavalry, 549. 

Fayette, Mr., a colored preacher, 45, 46. 

Featherstonhaugh, Dr. Thomas, 55S n. 

Fessenden, Wm. Pitt, letter from John A. An- 
drew, 530. 

Field, David Dudley, 230. 

Filer, James N., shoots Sheriff Jones, 140. 

Fisher, Ellwood, letter to Gov. Wise. 47 n. 93. 

Fitch, G. N., U. S. Senator from Indiana, joins 
in majority report of Mason Com., 580. 

Flanders farm at No. Elba, hired by B, 72. 

Flirt (yacht), 51 5- 

Floyd, John B., Sec'y of War, anonymous letter 
to. denouncing B's plan, 410; discredits the 
warning, 410; publishes the letter after the 

_^ raid, 411; 450,470. And see " Floyd letter." 

" Floyd letter," authorship and motive of, 411. 
And see Cue, David J. 

Fobes, E. Alexander, 343, 406. 

Forbes, Hugh, B's first acquaintance with, 285; 
his antecedents and character, 285; becomes 
instructor of B's " volunteer-regular " com- 
pany, 286; his Manual of the Patriotic Volun- 
teer, 286, 298, 313; B becomes suspicious of 
him, 286; money raised by him, 287; his The 
Duty of the Soldier, 297, 298; his usefulness to 
B of brief duration, 298; disagreement with 
B as to future operations, 299; denounces the 
" Humanitarians," 299; his differences with B, 
313, 314; his own plan, 314; abuses B and his 
supporters, 317 seqq.; his blackmailing oper- 
ations, 317, 318; postponement of B's plan 
caused by his threats, etc., 338, 339; quoted, 
467 n.; authorities for story of B's relations 
with him, 624 n. 49; 291, 293, 302, 304, 337, 
338, 340, 343, 396, 478, 531. Letters to S. 
G. Howe, 313, 318; from John Brown Jr., 
318. 

Forbes, John M., his impressions of B, 398, 399. 

Foreman, James, recollections of B's early life, 
21-23, 25; does not mention B's project of 
abolishing slavery, 46, 47. Letter to James 
Redpath, 21-23. 

Fort Scott (Kansas), young men of, form a 
watch-guard, 192, 193; attempt to burn, 349, 
351; " the only place in Kansas where the 
Border Ruffians now (April, 1858) show their 
teeth," 352; attacked by Montgomery, 366; 
evil effects of attack on, 366, 367. 

Foster, Abby Kelley, 50 and n. 

Foster, Daniel, 293. 

Fouke, Christine, 442. 

Fowler, O. S., phrenologist, on B, 20. 

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper, 520. 

Frankfort (Ky.) Yeoman, quoted, 502. 

Franklin (Kansas), attacked by Major Abbott, 
212; second Free State attack on, 230, 231. 



INDEX 



723 



Franklin, Benjamin, influence of his writings on 

B, 16, 50. 
Franklin Land Co., 27. 
Franklin Mills (Ohio), 26 seqq. 
Frazee. Mr., 292, 293. , „ , _ 

Frederick (Md.), militia of, at Harper s Ferry. 

Frederick the Great, sword reputed to have 
been given by him to Geo. Washington, 431, 
worn by B throughout tlie fight, 447- 

Free Soil. See Free State. 

Free State cause, helped on by Lawrence out- 
rages 146; lost a great moral advantage by 
Pottawatomie murders, 187, 188; prejudiced 
by Montgomery's attack on Fort Scott, 366, 

Free State Central Committee, 304. 
Free State Convention, at Lawrence, resolu- 
tions of, 91; in Topeka, in 1857, 295. 296. 
Free State election of Aug. 9, i8S7. 296. 
Free State emigrants, in Lane's " caravan, 
225; Missouri River closed against, 225; go 
from Chicago to Kansas via Iowa and Ne- 
braska, 225; forwarded by National Kansas 
Com., 227. „ .^ • . J K 

Free State Executive Committee, appointed by 

Topeka Convention, 108. 
Free State Hotel at Lawrence, meetings at, 123. 
124; its demolition recommended by U. S. 
Grand Jury, 143; demolished, 145, 146. 
Free State leaders, the claim that B was carry- 
ing out their orders in Pottawatomie exploit, 
180, 182. , . . u 

Free State Legislature, election of members 
of, 128; assembles, elects U. S. senators, me- 
morializes Congress for admission of Kansas, 
and is dispersed by Sumner's troops, 132; 
only fifteen members sign memorial to Con- 
gress, 133- , . , ^ . 
Free State men, code of punishments for. en- 
acted bv Shawnee Legislature, 91; early drift 
of affairs in Kansas adverse to, 941 fewer in 
numbers at first than bona-fide Missouri set- 
tlers, 95; elected to Kansas Legislature and 
ousted by pro-slavery majority, 99; decide to 
repudiate Shawnee Legislature, 101-103; 
their policy, to call a constitutional conven- 
tion loi, 102; of divers opinions, loi; classed 
as inoderates and radicals, 102; jealousies 
among, 102; six conventions of, June 8 to 
Aug. 14, i8ss, 102, 103; conflict of opinion 
between radicals and moderates, 102; two 
conventions on same day, distinction be- 
tween, 103; two constitutional conventions 
called, 103; forced to abandon platform of 
Big Springs Convention, 104; hold Topeka 
Constitutional Convention, 105; abstain 
from voting for delegate in election ordered 
by Shawnee Legislature, 106; elect Reeder at 
election ordered by Big Springs Convention, 
106; appointment of Howard Com. a triumph 
for them, 107; duality of management among, 
107; enraged by McCrea-Clark murder, 109; 
rescue of Branson by, 113. ii4; answer to ap- 
peal for help from Lawrence, 118; B's descrip- 
tion of the relief expedition, 118-120; de- 
nounced by Pres. Pierce in special message to 
Congress, 130; several indicted for treason 
after Pottawatomie, 142, i43; their attitude 
toward the murders, 167, 168, 169. 170; no 
law for them in Kansas, 180, 181 ; some of the 
indicted men arrested, 192; others banished, 
192; out, under arms, after the murders, 197; 
Pate's prisoners released by B, 208; after 
Black Jack fight, 208; attack and sack Frank- 
lin, 212; their robberies treated as lawful acts 
of war by Northern press, 212; less guilty 
than pro-slavery men in respect of crimes of 
violence, 215; aggressive guerrilla warfare 
carried on by, 215. 216, 229 seqq.; drive out 



pro-slavery settlement at New Georgia, 229; 
second attack on Franklin, 230, 231; enraged 
by murder of Major Hoyt, 231; attack 
"Fort" Saunders, 231; real fighlhig at 
" Fort " Titus, 231 ; Lt.-Col. Cooke's good ad- 
vice, 252; movement against Leavenworth, 
253, 254; offer command to B, tlicn to Col. 
Harvey, 254; large number in confinement, 
256; Capt. Wood's " haul " checks their law- 
lessness, 256; from Iowa, including S. C. 
Pomeroy, arrested, 260; losses between Nov. 
1855 and Dec. 1856, 264; indictments on Pot- 
tawatomie score nol pros'd, 294; pouring into 
Kansas in 1857, 295; decline to take part in 
election of delegates to Constitutional Con- 
vention, June, 1857, 296; vote at Free State 
election in Aug. shows their preponderance in 
Kansas, 296; vote at Grasshopper Falls to take 
part in election of delegate, 296; predomin- 
ance of peace party among, 296; victorious 
in election of Territorial Legislature and dele- 
gate, Oct. 1857.306; decide to work under ex- 
isting government, 307; and the Marais des 
Cygnes massacre, 348, 349; in southeastern 
Kansas, 352; in joint meeting with pro-slav- 
ery men, adopt B's peace agreement, 366. 
Free State movement, great gains of, in 1855. 

Free State party, divided counsels of, in first 
territorial election, 95; defeated in second 
election, 98 seqq.; vote of, cast for Delahay as 
delegate and C. Robinson for governor, Jan. 
1856, 129; blamed for incident in Judge 
Cato's court, 137. and for Pottawatomie 
murders, 190; its position and prospects m 
June, 1858, 346 seqq.; refrains from voting at 
first election on Lecompton Constitution, 
346; at second election secures rejection of 
the constitution, 346. 
Free State settlers, reports of threats against 
those near Osawatomie, not spread by any 
one man, 177; general threats against, prob- 
ably B's impelling motive in Pottawatomie 
murders, 177, 178; some deed of violence 
thought by some necessary to rouse them, 
180; their previous good reputation of value 
to them in the crisis, 191, 192; criticised by 
Democrats, 226. 

Fremont, John C, 220, 265. 

Fremont-Buchanan campaign of 1856, Kansas 
a leading issue in, 226. 

Frothingham, Octavius B., his Life of Uerrii 
Smith, quoted, 535. 536; 627 n. 27. 

Fugit (or Fugert), Mr., murders Wm. Hoppe on 
a wager, 215; tried and acquitted, 215; 352. 

Fugitive Slave Law, 50, 74. 75- 

Fuller, Abram, 381. 

Fuller, Bain, 153. 

Fuller, W. B., 246. 

Fulton (Mo.) Telegraph, 99. 

Furness, Wm. H., 560; quoted as to B s speech 
before sentence, 646 n. 81. 

Gait House, Harper's Ferry, 429. 439. 440. 
Garcelon, Mrs. Jennie Dunbar. See Dunbar, 

Jennie. 
Gardner, Joseph, 575. 576, 578, 580. 
Garnett, Rev. H. H., colored, 323- 
Garrett, John W., Pres. B. & O. R. R., acts on 

news of hold-up of train, 434; 449, 5i9- 
Garrison, David, murder of, 181, 210, 242, 243. 
Garrison, Wendell P. The Preludes of Harper s 

Ferry, 46 and n., 594 n. 2. . , .. . 

Garrison, Wendell P. and Francis J., their 

William IJovd Garrison quoted, 272. _ 

Garrison, William Lloyd, his first meeting with 

B, and his impressions, 271, 272; quoted, 

500 654 n. 9; at Tremont Temple meeting, 

S6o; his sonnet. Freedom of the Mind, 651 n. 

84; SO, 139. 191. 510, 562. 565. 



724 



INDEX 



Garrisonian doctrine of non-resistance, not ac- 
ceptable to B, 49. 
Gaston, Geo. B., 267. 

Gaston, Mrs. Geo. B., quoted, concerning con- 
ditions in Tabor, 267, 268. 

Gay, Hamilton, letter from Perkins and Brown, 
59. 

Gay, William, murder of, 181, 215. 

Gaylord, Daniel C, 37, 38, 41. 

Geary, John W., succeeds Shannon as Gov. of 
Kansas (Sept., 1856), 234; his arrival ushers 
in a better era, 255 ; issues address and pro- 
clamations, 2ss; orders disbandment of pro- 
slavery militia and organization of a new body, 
255; equally severe on pro-slavery murderers 
and Free State marauders, 255; more and 
more favorable to Free State cause, 255; 
in Lawrence, with U. S. troops under Cooke, 
256, 257; averts pro-slavery attack there, 
259; unjustly denounced by B, 268; resigns, 
294; his administration, 294; leaves Kansas a 
Free State man, 294; 254, 263, 264, 277. 

Georgia, pro-slavery men from, in Kansas, 137, 
138. 

Gibbons family, 327. 

Gibson, Col. John T., 438, 440, 452. 

Giddings, Joshua R., attacked in majority re- 
port of Mason Com., 582; 394, 398, 459, 472, 
474. Lcltcr to B, 134; from B, 131. 

Giddmgs, Mrs. Joshua R., 394. 

Gihon, Mr., 173. 

Gilbert, Isaac, 442 n. 

Gileadites, U. S. league of, organized in Spring- 
field (1851), so; B's " Words of Advice " for, 
SO, 51, 52; object of, si; agreement and reso- 
lutions of, S2, 53; 55. 75- 

Gill, Geo. B., elected " Sec'y of the Treasury " 
at Chatham Convention, 333; and Jim Dan- 
iels's story, 367, 368; in Missouri raid, 368; 
quoted, 363, 364, 379, 382, 389, 680, 682; 
final parting from B, 390 n. ; his defection, 409; 
328, 330, 344. 353. 364. 370. 380, 381, 38s. 
386,413,414. 424. 510. Letters fromB, 337. 

Gill, Dr. H. C, 316. Letter from R. Realf, 330. 

Gilman, Charles F., quoted, 254. 

Gilpatrick, Rufus, elected judge of Squatters' 
Court as " Old Brown," 168, 175, 358. 

Gist, Gov., of So. Carolina. 567. 

Gladstone, Thomas H., The Englishman in Kan- 
sas, quoted, 97; 179. 

Glasgow (Mo.) Times, 99. 

Gloucester, J. N., colored, B discloses his plans 
to, 323. 

Gloucester, Mrs. J. N., colored, 323, 412. 

Golding, R., 168. 

Goodin, Joel K., Sec'y of Territorial Exec. 
Com., 106, and of Free State Exec. Com., 
108. 

Gordon, William, 247. 

Graham, Dr., 208. 

Graham, Mr., quoted as to B's last day in Kan- 
sas, 3S3. 

Grand Jury, Federal, indicts Free State men 
for treason without hearing witnesses, 142; 
recommends abatement of Free State news- 
papers as nuisances, 143, and demolition of 
Free State Hotel, 143. 

Grant, Charles, son of John T. Grant, 173. 

Grant, Geo. W., son of John T. Grant, and the 
case of Morse, 174, 175; not the mysterious 
messenger, 17s; quoted, 24s; iS3, 156, 169. 

Grant, Henry C, son of John T. Grant, 156, 169. 

Grant, J. G., son of John T. Grant, 167, 17s. 

Grant, John T., condemns Pottawatomie raid, 
167; 169, 172, 173. 

Grant, Mrs. John T., 173. 

Grant, Mary E., daughter of John T. Grant, al- 
leged assault of W. Sherman on, 172, 173, 175, 
177; quoted. 230. 

Grasshopper Falls Convention, 296. 



Gray, Dr., 535. 

Greeley, Horace, quoted as to G. Smith, 71, 72; 
quoted, 95. 104, 126, 147, 476, 480; challenged 
by H. C. Pate, 613 n. 19; 49. 138. 139, 188, 
230, 287, 472, 510. Letter to S. Colfax, 476. 

Green, Lieut. Israel, commands marines at 
Harper's Ferry, 440, 450; leads attack on en- 
gine house, 452-454; his Capture of John 
Brown, quoted, 453; sketch of, 642 n. 61; 
462 n., 470. 

Green, Shields, colored, decides to go with B, 
despite advice of F. Douglass, 412, 413; in 
Harper's Ferry party, 414, 418, 421, 431, 449; 
made prisoner in engine house, 454; convicted 
and sentenced, 569, 570; executed, 570; 
sketch of, 687; 470, 471, 486, 571, 572. 

Green, Thomas C, mayor of Charlestown, as- 
signed as counsel for B, 483, 484; denounced 
by B and withdraws, 492; sketch of, 645 n.49; 
490, 491, 507, 520. 

Green, William, employed as counsel for B be- 
fore the Court of Appeals, 646 n. 75. 

Greenlaw, Wm. P., 591 n. 6. 

Gregg, E. H., letter to J. H. Holmes, 389. 

Grinnell, Josiah B., his warm welcome of B, 
386, 387; 390. 

Griswold, Hiram, sent by D. R. Tilden to assist 
in B's defence, 493, 495; argues for defence, 
496; lays evidence of B's insanity before 
Gov. Wise, 507, S08. 

Grover, Capt. Joel, at " Fort " Titus, 231. 

Grover, Mr., 380. . 

Grow, Galusha A., his bill for admission of Kan- 
sas under Topeka Constitution passed by 
House of Representatives, 226. 

Gue, Benjamin F., 411. 

Gue, David J., author of Floyd letter, 411; hia 
motive in writing it, 411, 412. 

Hadley, Daniel B., S94 n. 12. 

Hadsall, C. C, and the sale of Eli Snyder'a 
claim at Moneka, 356, 3S7. 

Hagerstown (Md.), 402, 403. 

Haine, Deputy Sheriff, 215. 

Hairgrove, Asa, 348, 354. 375- 

Hale, John P., U. S. Senator from New Hamp- 
shire, 339- 

Hall, Amos, murdered by Charles A. Hamilton 
and his men, 348, 375. 

Hall, Austin, 348, 375. 

Haller, William, kills J. T. Lyie, 295. 

Hallock, Rev. Jeremiah, 12. 

Hallock, Rev. Moses, 17. 

Hallock, William H., quoted, 17. 

Hamburg, visited by B, 61. 

Hamilton, Charles A., Border Ruffian, bloody 
deed of, 186, 187, 348, 349. 375; motive for 
his crime, 349; authorities for the story of, 
629 n. 3. 

Hammond, Col. C. G., 390. 

Hamtramck Guards, at Harper's Ferry, 444, 
464, 46s. 

Hannibal (Mo.) Messenger, 99. 

Hanway, James, The Settlement of Lane and 
Vicinity, quoted, 136; in Kansas Monthly, 
153; condemns Pottawatomie murders, 167; 
but later approves, 167, 170; 175, 358. Letter 
to R. J. Hinton, 358; from S. Walker, 228, 229. 
Harding. Charles B., State's attorney, character 
of, 48s, 645 n. S3; sums up for prosecution, 
495; 483. 489, 494- 
Harper. Gen. Kenton, 465. 
Harper's Ferry, B's plan to seize arsenal dis- 
closed to Col. Woodruff in 1854 or iSss, 54; 
but may have been conceived much earlier, 
55; details of plan discussed, 313; B arrives at, 
July 3, 1859, 403; details of attack on, 426 
seqq.; B moves his force from Kennedy Farm 
to, 426, 427; place ill-chosen for an attack on 
slavery, 437, 428; the arsenal, 428, 429, 430; 



INDEX 



725 



description of the town, 428, 429; unfavorable 
strategic position, 429; approaclics to, 429; 
unsusijecting of invasion, 4J0; rusli of militia 
to, 444; conduct of citizens of, 447, 448. 

Harper's Ferry Raid, assumes national propor- 
tions only because of B's survival, 471, 472; 
Southern opinion concerning, 474-476; its 
real significance, 476. 

Harris, James, his story of the murder of W. 
Sherman, 162-164. 

Harris, James H., colored, 331, 413. 

" Harrisburg," letter to Gov. Wise so signed, 
5 1 8. 

Harrison, Jeremiah, 121. 

Harrison, William H., alias of R. J. Ilinton and 
of A. Hazlett, 572. 

Harrisonville (Mo.) Democrat, Quoted, 370. 

Hartford (Conn.), 278. 

Hartford Evening Press and the raid, 472. 

Harvey, James A., commands abortive expedi- 
tion against Leavenworth, 254; captures pro- 
slavery force at Hickory Point, 256; many of 
his men taken prisoners by Capt. Wood, 256; 
233, 252, 253. 

Hawes, Alexander G., 239, 24s, 247. 

Hawkins, Nelson, nom de guerre adopted by B, 
in 1S57, 290, 325 and n., 339. 

Hayden, Lewis, and F. J. Merriam, 421. 

Haymaker, Mr., 27. 

Haynau, Mr. See Haine. 

Hay ward, Shephard, colored, shot to death by 
B's raiders, 433, 434; 44i. 461. 479- 

Hazlett, Albert, in Harper's Ferry party, 414, 
419, 420, 430, 439; his escape, 445. 446; cap- 
tured in Penn., 446; ignored by B and the 
other prisoners in the hope of saving his life, 
554. 572; attempts to save him after B's e.\e- 
cution, 573 seqq.; executed, 580; sketch of, 
682; 368, 369, 471. 554, 558 n. 

Heiskell, Gen., 189, 257. 

Helper, Hinton Rowan, his Impending Crisis, 
568, 583, 584. 585. 587. 

" Henry," letter to B, 518. 

Herald of Freedom, 91. I43. 231, 354. 37i. 632 
n. 71. 

Hicklan (or Hicklin), Harvey G., Jim Daniels's 
temporary master, 368; his account of B's 
Missouri raid, 368. 

Hickory Point, pro-slavery force at, threatened 
by Lane and captured by Harvey, 256. 

Hicks, Gov., of Maryland. 524. 

Higgins, Patrick, first man wounded at Har- 
per's Ferry, 432 and n. 

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, his Cheerful 
Yesterdays quoted, 170, 326, 397. 579. S8o, 
595 n. 2 1 ; on Lane's eloquence, 226 ; angry at 
delay in autumn of 1857, 303; his characteri- 
zation of B, 326; his memorandum on post- 
ponement of Virginia plan, 340; disinclined to 
aidB in May, 1859, 397; his feeling on hearing 
of Harper's Ferry raid, 397; one of the first 
to move for rescue of B, 5 1 1 ; his temperament 
and principles, 511 ; appeals to Mrs. Brown to 
induce B to consent to rescue, 512, 513; Mr. 
Spooner's plan to kidnap Gov. Wise, 515; 
after the failure at Harper's Ferry, 529; re- 
proaches Dr. Howe, 532; his part in attempts 
to save Stevens and Hazlett, 573 seqq.; his 
aliases, 573; 324, 421, 47i. 5I4. 5I5. Si7. 570. 
Letters to B, 338, 397. Dr. Howe, 533. F. B. 
Sanborn, 529; from B, 320, 513. 543. Dr. 
Howe, 532, F. B. Sanborn, 303. 325. 326, 339, 
396, 530. 

Higginson, Mrs. T. 'W., 573, 577, 581. 

Hill, Mr., 214, 292. 

Hinckley, Alexis, 413. 

Hinsdale, Abel, 29. 

Hinton, R. J., his John Brown and his Men, 
quoted, 17, 484, 625 n. 97; his journal, quoted, 
258; and the attempt to save Stevens and 



Hazlett, 572 seqq.; 175, 308, 336, 3S2. 4I3. 

414, 424, 512, 516, 570. 

Hoadley, George, k'tter to S. P. Chase, 587. 

Hoar, E. Rockwood, 396, 534. 

Hobart, Mrs. Danley, ((uoted, 18. 

Hodges, Willis H., cooperates with B in assist- 
ing negroes at No. Elba, 73. Letter from B, 72. 

Holbrook, James J., 3d Lieut, of Liberty 
Guards, 121. 

Holland, F. M., Frederick Douglass: the Colored 
Orator, quoted. 85. 

Holman, Mrs. Mary L., 591 n. 6. 

Holmes, James H., 234, 236, 238, 239, 240, 243, 
245, 247. 261, 290, 293. Letter to B, 300. 

Holmes, Mrs., 172. 

Holt, J. H., captures Copeland, 445. 

Hopkins, Mr., murder of, 215. 

Hoppe, Wm., murder of, 181, 215, 352. 

Hopper family, 327. 

House of Representatives (U. S.), votes to ad- 
mit neitlier Wliitfield nor Reeder as delegate, 
226; passes Grow bill for admission of Kansas, 
under Topeka Const., 226; and rejects 
Toombs bill, 227; attaches Free State rider to 
Army Appropriation bill, which fails of pas- 
sage, 227; Speakership contest in 1859-60, 
583. S85. 

Howard Committee of House of Representa- 
tives, appointed in March, 1856, to investi- 
gate Kansas situation, 94 and n., 100, 116. 
117, 141, 143, 183; decision of, on election of 
Territorial delegate, 106, 107 and n.; reports 
of, 107, 109, 120, 226; their value, and effect 
on public opinion, 107. 

Howard, William A., chairman of Howard Com- 
mittee, 94 n.; and John Sherman, report of, 
quoted, 120. 

Howe, Dr. Samuel G., accused of duplicity and 
prevarication by Adm. Chadwick, 341; and 
the proposed attack on Charlestown, 517; 
goes to Canada after the raid, 530; his self- 
exculpatory card, 531; his attitude discussed, 
531-533; attacked by Higginson, 532; before 
the Mason Com., 532; 271, 324, 325, 326, 340, 
397,399. 484, 582. Letters to T. W. Higgin- 
son, 532, Henry Wilson, 341 ; from H. Forbes, 
313, T. W. Higginson, 533, Henry Wilson, 
339. 

Hoyt, David S., murder of, 181, 215, 231. 

Hoyt, George H., retained by Le Barnes to de- 
fend B, 484; his instructions, 484; his youth 
arouses A. Hunter's suspicions, 484,485; his 
first appearance in court, 490; allowed to act 
as counsel, 490; asks for delay, 492; becomes 
sole counsel, 493; reinforced by Chilton and 
Griswold, 493; proceeds with defence, 494. 
495; submits affidavits concerning B's insan- 
ity to (5ov. Wise, 508; tells B of plan to rescue 
him, 512; forced to leave Charlestown, 520; 
quoted, concerning Stevens, 680; 517, 540, 
544. Letters to J. W. Le Barnes, 479 n., 495, 
512. 

Hudson (Ohio), 9. 

Huffmaster, Mrs., an inquisitive neighbor of 
Kennedy Farm, 417, 418, 419- 

Hughes, Mrs. Sarah F., her John Murray 
Forbes quoted, 398, 399- 

Hugo, Victor, his John Brown quoted, 569, 588. 

" Humanitarians. The," H. Forbes's name for 
B's friends in Mass., 299. 

Humphrey, Rev. Heman, 15. 

Humphrey, Rev. Luther, 15. Letter from B, 543. 

Hunnewell, James, 302. 

Hunt, Washington, 563. 

Hunter, Andrew, special prosecutor to try B., 
442; suspicious of Hoyt's youth, 484, 485; his 
character and ability, 48s; his conduct of the 
prosecution, 485; opening address to jury, 
490; and his son's story of the shooting of 
Wm. Thompson, 491; accuses B of feigning 



726 



INDEX 



illness to gain time, 49s; his John Brown's 
Raid quoted, 495, 522, 525, 527; his closing 
argument, 496; and the rescue scares, 521, 
522; makes B's will, 550; sketch of, 64s n. S5; 
456, 491, 494. 499, 524, S2S, S26, 527, 548 and 
n., 570, 571, 588. Letters to Gov. Wise, 477; 
from B, S48, Gov. Letcher, 578, Dr. Peticolas, 
S04 n., Gov. Wise, 478, 504, 521. Father of 

Hunter, Harry, describes killing of Wm. Thomp- 
son by himself and Chambers, 442, 491. 

Hurd, H. B., Sec'y of National Kansas Com., 
denies B's authority to sign as agent, 360; 
27s, 276. Letters to G. L. Stearns, 275, E. B. 
Whitman, 360. 

Hutchings, John, 175. 

Hutchinson, William, 307, 373, 374. Letter to 
Mrs. Hutchinson, 373. 

Hyatt, Thaddeus, Journal of Investigations in 
Kansas, 89 n.; Pres. of National Kansas 
Com., 227; arrested and released, 582, 583; 
23s, 287, 298. 

Imboden, Gen. J. D., 46s. 

Independence (Mo.) Messenger, 99. 

Indians, near Hudson, Ohio, 9, 13; in Osawa- 
tomie neighborhood, 89, 90. 

IngersoU (Canada), 328. 

Insanity, suggested plea of, in B's family, 489, 
490; the whole question discussed, 508-510. 

Iowa, Historical Dept. of, 384. 

lowans, in B's force in Kansas, 236. 

Irrepressible Conflict, The, imminence of, indi- 
cated by Mr. Spooner's plan to kidnap Gov. 
Wise, 514; 527. 586. 

Irving, Washington, his Life of Washington, 
325- 

Isaaks, A. J., U. S. Dist. Att'y for Kansas, up- 
holds legality of Shawnee Legislature, 100. 

Iverson, Lieut., 196. 

Iverson, Alfred, U. S. Senator from Georgia, 
584, 587, 596 n. 4. 

Jackson, Andrew, President of the U. S., 14. 

Jackson, Mrs B. F., quoted, 155; 173. 

Jackson, Congrave, and Maughas, G. B. M., 
their report of the fight at Osawatomie, 247. 

Jackson, Francis, 420. 

Jackson, J. P., 525. 

Jackson, M. V. B., 151, 178. 

Jackson, Patrick T., 271, 274. 

Jackson, Prof. T. J. (" Stonewall "), 523, 555, 
5S6. 

Jacobs, Judge, befriends Jason Brown, 194, 
195. 

Jamison, " Quartermaster General," 301. 

" Jayhawkers," 350. 5i3- 

Jefferson, Thomas, President of the U. S.; his 
Notes on the State of Virginia quoted, 428; 
559. 

Jefferson, Thomas, B's colored driver, 72. 

Jefferson City Inquirer, 99, 189. 

Jefferson Guards, turn out at Charlestown, 436 ; 
well led, 437; 438, 465. 

Jenkins, Gaius, indicted for treason, 142, and 
arrested, 145. 

Jennison, Charles, Free State leader of an 
armed band, and a raider 187, 366; in Mis- 
souri raid, 368; 513. 

Jerry Rescue Committee, 536. 

John Brown Song, The, 506, 585. 

Johnson, Oliver, 575. 

Johnston, Lt.-Col. Joseph E., at Lawrence, in 
command of LI. S. troops, 257, 259, 260. 

Jones, Rev. Elijah B., letter from John Sher- 
man, 506 n. 

Jones, H. L., describes feeling of Free State men 
as to Pottawatomie murders, 167, 168. 

Jones, John, shooting of, 141, 142, 180. 

Jones, John, colored, 390. 

Jones, Lieut. J. P., 633 n. 85. 



Jones, John T. ("Ottawa"), his house de- 
stroyed, 253 and n.; 154, 165, 195, 196, 207, 
277. 

Jones, Mrs. John T., 253. 

Jones, Jonas, 276, 277, 293, 299, 388. 

Jones, Samuel J., Sheriff, and the rescue of 
Branson, 113, 114; appeals to Gov. Shannon, 
114; blamed in report of Howard Com., 120; 
his alleged language, 120; correspondence 
with Robinson and Lane, 129; declares 
treaty of Lawrence violated by Free State 
men, 130; again in Lawrence, 139; arrests 
S. N. Wood, 140; resisted, brings U. S. troops 
to Lawrence, 140; wholesale arrests by, 140; 
wounded by J. N. Filer, 140; his death an- 
nounced by pro-slavery papers, 140; shooting 
of, unfortunate for people of Lawrence, 140, 
141 ; at burning of Free State Hotel, 146; 124, 
145, 179, 180, 185, 190. 

Joyce, Burr, his John Brown's Raids, quoted, 
368, 369. 

Jurisdiction, question of, as between State and 
Federal Courts in matter of the raid, 477, 478. 

Kagi, John Henry, approves B's Harper's Ferry 
plan when first broached, 313; secretary of 
Chatham Convention, 331; elected "Secre- 
tary of War " at Chatham Convention, 333; 
quoted, 364, 365; in Missouri raid, 368; at- 
tempt to arrest, 388; stationed at Chambers- 
burg, Penn., 406, 407; "a melancholy 
brigand " according to A. Ward, 392; urges 
B to leave Harper's Ferry, 438; his steadfast 
conduct and death, 444, 445; sketch of, 679; 
254, 308 and n., 315, 330, 337, 343, 344, 353. 
357, 35S, 359, 360, 362, 363, 366, 374, 375, 
379, 386, 387, 390, 391, 393, 394, 395, 397, 
401, 402, 412, 417, 419, 420, 427, 429, 431, 
510. Letters to John Brown, Jr., 422, N. Y. 
Tribune, 362, 363, his sister, 358; from B, 
397, 402, 406, 408, John Brown, Jr., 413. 

Kaiser, Charles, murdered, 250; 199, 200, 246. 

Kansas, evil days in, 54; objects of coloniza- 
tion in, 80; its natural characteristics, 80; 
the slavery issue in, 80; conditions in, as seen 
by John Brown, Jr., 83; hardships of settlers 
in, during winter of 1855-1856, 89 and n.; 
rival parties in, 94; first election in, decided 
by fraudulent votes of Missourians, 94; H. 
Greeley concerning prospects in, 95; New 
Englanders sent to, by Emigrant Aid Socie- 
ties, 95; second election in, 98 seqq.; first 
Territorial legislature, elected in 1855, solidly 
pro-slavery, 99; effect of that election on 
sentiment at the North and in Missouri, 99, 
100; meeting of first legislature at Pawnee, 
and later at Shawnee, 100; its voters in favor 
of excluding all negroes, 105; two elections 
for delegate to Congress, Oct. 1855, 106; two 
hostile governments in, 107; Constitution 
framed by Topeka Convention ratified by 
people, 107; claimed to be an organized free 
state, 107; invaded by Missourians posing as 
Kansas militia, 115, 116; Free State Legisla- 
ture memorializes Congress for admission 
under Topeka Const., 133; pro-slavery men 
from other states in, 137, 138; colonists from 
New England in, 138; fears of Free State 
sympathizers of rush of settlers from South- 
ern States, 139; Marshal Donaldson's pro- 
clamation to law-abiding citizens, 143; rush 
of colonists to, after Lawrence outrages, 146, 
147; nation's attention centred on, as result 
of Lawrence raid, 147; Pottawatomie murders 
the most prolific subject of discussion in its 
history, 148; conditions in 1856 as bearing 
on resort to extra-legal methods, 171 seqq.; 
seething with lawlessness, 2 1 1 ; in Fremont- 
Buchanan campaign, 226; and the Howard 
Com. report, 226; discussions on, in Congress, 



INDEX 



727 



226; Grow bill, for admission under Topeka 
Const., passed by House of Representatives, 
226; Toombs bill, for taking census in, etc., 
227; minor warfare in (Aur. 1856), 234 seciq.; 
situation intensified by B's defeat, and burn- 
ing of Osawatomie, 250 seqQ.; Gov. Geary's 
arrival ushers in a better era, 255; last organ- 
ized Missourian invasion of, 257 seqQ.; peace 
prevails in Nov. 1856, 260; destruction of life 
and property between Nov. 1855, and Dec. 
1856, 2()4; eiTect of climate and soil on politi- 
cal views of settlers, 265; no one man decided 
its fate, 263, 266; Mass. Legislature asked to 
appropriate money for Free State cause in, 
277; fate of, as concerned in B's plans, 284; 
Gov. Walker's administration, 294, 295; 
1857 a year of quiet and progress, 295; Free 
State and pro-slavery conventions in that 
year, 293, 296; Free State victory in election 
of Oct. 1857, 306; peace-party in ascendant in 
autumn of 1S57, 306, 307; success at polls 
more effective than " Beecher's Bibles," 306, 
307; policy of Free State leaders, 307; causes 
of freedom and prosperity of, 307; in June, 
1858, 346 seqq.; Lecompton Const. — with 
slavery — adopted at fraudulent election, 
346; rejected at second election, 346; state 
officers chosen, 346; bribe offered to, by Con- 
gress, in English bill, 347; Lecompton Const, 
finally rejected, 3471 renewal of lawlessness in 
S. E. counties, 348; B's description of condi- 
tions in those counties in July and Aug. 1858, 
354; Legislature of, and B's Missouri raid, 
377; B's presence in 1858 a cause of excite- 
ment and strife, 378; peace restored when he 
had left the Territory, 379; legislative act of 
amnesty for certain crimes, 379; enjoys peace 
and quiet thereafter unt:". the Civil War, 379. 
And see Free State, Lawrence, Lecompton 
Constitution, Pottawatomie Creek, Pro-slav- 
ery, Shawnee Legislature, Topeka Constitu- 
tional Convention. 

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1834), 75. 79. 80, 587. 

Kansas Free State, 122, 143. 

Kansas Historical Society, collections of, 174. 

" Kansas Legion," 112, 113. 

Kansas militia, Atchison's army poses as, 230; 
organization of, ordered by Pres. Pierce, 251; 
disbanded by order of Gov. Geary, 233; new 
organization of, to be mustered into service of 
U. S., 235. 

Kansas Pioneer, accessory before the fact to 
murder of Reese P. Brown, 129-. 

" Kansas Ruffians," compared with Border 
Ruffians, 264. 

Kansas Weekly Herald, quoted concerning pro- 
slavery triumph in 1834, 95. 157. 169, 190. 

Kapp, Friedrich, 373. 

Kellogg, George, agent of New England Woolen 
Co., 30. Letter from B, 31. 

Kelly, J. W. B., thrashed for holding abolition 
views, 1 10. 

Kemper, Gen. James L., quoted, 566. 

Kennedy, Dr., B rents farm of, near Harper's 
Ferry, 403. 

Kennedy, Mary V., married to John E. Cook, 
40S, 6Sr. 

Kennedy Farm, rented by B, description of, 
404; 3's force of 21 men-at-arms at, in Aug. 
1839, 414, 415; daily life at, described by 
Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, 416-420; all B's 
correspondence left there, 467. 

Kent (Ohio), 27. 

Kent, Marvin, quoted as to B's character, 28; 

27, S8. 

Kent, Zenas, B's partner at Franklin Mills, 27, 

28. Letter from, 26. 

Kibbey, Lucius, his killing of Davis not a po- 

litir:\l crime, 109. 
Kickapoo Rangers, 129, 144, 223, 260. 



Kiene, Llewellyn L., describes the " Battle 0/ 
the Spurs." 381, 382. 

Kilbourne, Mr., njO. 

King, Charles, 230. 

King, Rev. H. D., recalls B's table-talk, 208. 
2yy; and B's retiucst for a thanksgiving .ser- 
vice at Tabor, 384, 385. 

King Brothers, arms stored in their ware-roo.-nd, 
343. 

Kinnaird, Thomas M., 333. 

Kirkwood, Samuel J., i'.ov. of Iowa, quoted, 
.567,. S'>8. 

Kitzmiller, A. M., temporarily in charge of 
arsenal at Harper's Ferry, 433, 439. 

Ladd, Benj. W., letter from Perkins and Brown, 
60. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, pistol presented to Geo. 
Washington by, 431. 

Lane, James H., chairman of a convention in 
Lawrence, 103; joins Free Soilers, 103; chair- 
man of Topeka Const. Conv., 103; at Big 
Springs Conv., 106; early attitude on negro 
question, 106; chairman of Free State Exec. 
Com., 108; rival of C. Robinson, 108; refused 
leave to act as counsel for McCrea, 109; ad- 
dresses meeting at Lawrence after treaty of 
peace, 123; addresses meeting of pro-slavery 
captains at Franklin, 124; authorized by 
Shannon to preserve peace at Lawrence, 125; 
elected provisionally U. S. Senator by Free 
State Legislature, 132; indicted for treason, 
142; escapes arrest, 143; said to have inspired 
B's Pottawatomie expedition, 183, 184; his 
Free State " caravan," 223; at Nebraska City 
with his caravan, 223; assumes aliasof Cook, 
223; speech at Chicago, 223, 226; his elo- 
quence described by T. W. Higginson, 226; 
leaves Nebraska City for Lawrence with B 
and S. Walker, 228; reaches Lawrence alone, 
228; with S. Walker makes demonstration 
against Lecompton and effects release of 
prisoners, 232; returns to Lawrence, 252; mes- 
sage from, recalls expedition against Leaven- 
worth, 234; leaves for Nebraska on Geary's 
arrival, 256; projected siege of pro-slavery 
men at Hickory Point abandoned, 236; again 
in Kansas, 291; presides over Topeka Con- 
ventions, Juneand July, 1837, 293, 296;de3ires 
B's presence in Kansas, 300; appoints B 
"brigadier-general," 301; and B's Missouri 
raid, 370, 371; 121, 129, 140, 229, 231, 233, 
235 n., 239. 235,262, 263, 266,296,297,302, 
306, 346, 314. Letters to B, 300, 301, 304; 
from B, 300, 301. 

Lane, Samuel A., testifies in 1898 as to B's 
movements en route to Kansas in 1855, 8s; 
his Fifty Years and over of Akron and Summit 
County, 393 n. 32; 597 n. 14. 

Larue, John, his slaves liberated by B in Mis- 
souri raid, 369. 

Larue, John B.. 369. 

Laughlin, Patrick, shoots S. Collins, 112, 113. 

Law-and-Order Party, formed by pro-slavery 
men, 108; address concerning Pottawatomie 
murders, 192; meeting of protest, 192; ap- 
points vigilance committee, 192; 212. 

Lawrence (Kansas), Free State convention at, 
91; radical m'eeting at, Aug. 1833, 91; con- 
ventions of Free Soilers at, June to Aug., 1835, 
102, 103; the rescue of Branson by citizens of. 
and its consequences, 113 seqq.; Committee, 
of Safety formed, 113, 114; threatened by 
pro-slavery forces, 114; number of troops as- 
sembled against, 116; appeals to all Free 
State men to come to her rescue, 118; opera- 
tions for relief of, 1 18-120; end of siege of, 
120; open-air meetings, 123; terms of treaty, 
123; treaty of, accepted by both parties, 124; 
protection of, intrusted to Lane and Robin- 



728 



INDEX 



son by stratagem, 125; treaty of, an ill-fated 
pact, 126; invasion of, characterized in report 
of Howard Com., 120; citizens of, condemn 
shooting of Jones, to no effect, 140, 141; pro- 
slavery appeals for her destruction, 141; 
movement of force under Donaldson against, 
144, 145; committee of citizens offer submis- 
sion, and surrender their arms, 14s; helpless- 
ness of her citizens, 146; destruction of news- 
paper offices and Free State Hotel, 146; sack 
of, 180, described by S. C. Pomeroy, 182; 
sources for story of sack of, 607 n. 100; 
threatened by pro-slavery force, 257 seqq.; 
R. J. Hinton concerning conditions at, 258; 
fortifications of, 258; defence of, in hands of 
Maj. Abbott and Capt. Cracklin, 258; attack 
on, averted by Gov. Geary and Lt.-Col. 
Cooke, 259. 

Lawrence, Amos A., first impressions of B, 273; 
calls him the "Miles Standish of Kansas," 
273; his admiration for B cools, 400; his 
diary quoted. 400; 279,281,291. Letter to B, 
280; fro>n B, 279. 

Lawrence, Wm. R., 280. 

Lawrence Republican, 364, 365, 370, 480. 

Lawrence " Stubbs," J. B. Abbott's company, 
reinforces B at Black Jack, 208. 

Le Barnes, J. W., retains G. H. Hoyt to defend 
B, 484; among the first to plan rescue of B, 
511; and the Spooner plan to kidnap Wise, 
515 seqq.; and the proposed attack on Charles- 
town, S16, 517; and the attempt to save 
Stevens and Hazlett, 574; 512, sis, S28, 570. 
Letter to T. W. Higginson, 515; from G. H. 
Hoyt, 479 n., 495, 512. 

Leary, Lewis Sheridan, in B's Harper's Ferry 
party, 415, 421, 431; his death, 445; sketch 
, of, 685. 

Leather Manufacturers' Bank of New York, 37. 

Leavenworth, vote of, not counted in vote rati- 
fying Topeka Const., 107, 108; public meet- 
ing at, applauds outrage on W. Phillips, no; 
disturbances at, in Jan. 1856, 128, 129; pro- 
slavery mayor prohibits election under To- 
peka Const., 128; election adjourned to 
Easton, 128; murder of Reese P. Brown, 129; 
news of Pottawatomie murders at, 192; Free 
State expedition against, under Harvey, 254, 
recalled by Lane, 2S4. 

Leavenworth Herald, no, 116, 129, 230, 370. 

Leavenworth Times, " Battle of the Spurs " 
described in, 382, 383. 

Leavitt, Rev. Joshua, introduces Hugh Forbes 
toB, 28s; 318. 

Lecompte, S. D., Chief Justice of Kansas Ter- 
ritory, upholds legality of Shawnee Legisla- 
ture, 100; and the trial of McCrea for the 
murder of Clark, 109; his pro-slavery charge 
to Grand Jury after Pottawatomie, 142; his 
novel definition of constructive treason, 142. 

Lecompton Constitution, slavery question, how 
affected by, 346; two elections on adoption of, 
346; election of officers under, 346; in Con- 
gress, 347; rejected at election of Aug. 2, 
1858, 347; 296, 306, 3SI. 

Lecompton Constitutional Convention, in pro- 
slavery hands, 296; 306, 307. 

Lecompton Union, and the Pottawatomie mur- 
ders, 190. 

Lee, Col. Robert E., sent to Harper's Ferry to 
command all the forces there, 450; prepares 
to attack at daylight, 450; his orders as de- 
tailed by Stuart, 450. 4S1; execution of his 
plan, 451 seqq.; at the interview following 
B's capture, 456 seqq., 463, 464; in Harper's 
Ferry for execution of B, 523; 470, sss. 

Leeman, William H., indiscreet letter to his 
mother, 408; circumstances of his death, 440; 
sketch of, 68s; 308, 311, 329, 330, 337, 343, 
344. 414. 419, 437. 



Legate, James F., 126, 175. 

Lenhart, Charles, wrongfully suspected of 
shooting Sheriff Jones, 140; attempts to ef- 
fect escape of Cook and Coppoc, 571, 572; 
sketch of, 655 n. 46; 142, 215, 216, 414. 

Leonard, O. E., 232. 

Letcher, John, Gov. of Virginia, 572; warned of 
attempt to rescue Stevens and Hazlett, 578. 
Letter to A. Hunter, 578. 

Lewis, A. H., despatch to Faulkner and Botts. 
sod. 

Lexington (Mo.) Express, 117, 189. 

Liberator, The, B's acquaintance with, 49; ig- 
nores Pottawatomie murders, 191; and the 
raid, 473; 501, 583, 599 n. 50. 

Liberty (Mo.), arms stolen from U. S. armory 
there by Missourians invading Kansas, 117. 

Liberty Guards, B's company of Kansas mili- 
tia so-called, 121; muster-roll, 121; their 
length of service, 121, 122. 

Liberty Platform, 96. 

Lieber, Francis, letter to Dr. H. Drisler, 564. 

Limerick, W., quoted, 240, 241. Letter to Gen. 
Shields, 240. 

Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, S64; nominated for 
President, and elected, 585. 

Lincoln, Levi, ex-Gov. of Mass., 563. 

Little, J. H., killed in attack on Fort Scott, 366 . 

Lodge, John E., 280. 

Loguen, J. W., colored, 323. 327. 328. 

London, B's visit to, 61, 63. 

London Times, 475 n., s68. 

Longfellow, H. W., his diary quoted, 563. 

Longstreet, James, Lieut.-Gen., myth concern- 
ing, 224 n. 

Loudon Heights, 428, 429. 

Lovejoy, Elijah P., 51, 594 n. 13. 

Lowry, Grosvenor P., 140. 

Lowry, M. B., visits B in jail, 546. 

Lucas, Judge, 520. 

" Limber Jim," 519. 

Lusk, Mrs. Amos, B's mother-in-law and house- 
keeper, 18. 

Lusk, Dianthe. See Brown, Dianthe (Lusk). 

Lusk, Milton, B's brother-in-law, 19. 

Luther, Martin, 510. 

Lyle, James T., killed by Haller, 295. 

Lynch law, when justifiably resorted to, 171, 181. 

McClellan, Geo. B., report on the armies of 
Europe, 325. 

McClellan, H. B., Life and Campaigns of J. E. 
B. Stuart quoted, 450, 451. 

McClure. Alex. K., 421. 

McClure's Magazine, 594 n. 12. 

McCrea, Cole, charged with murder of Clark, 
109; treatment of, by Chief Justice Le- 
compte, 109; indicted and escapes, 109, no. 

McCrea-Clark homicide, of marked political 
significance, 109. 

McDaniel, Sheriff, 349, 364, 365. 

McDow, W. C, 168. 

McFarland, Rev. Mr., letter from B, 544, 545. 

Mcllvaine, Messrs., 137. 

Mcintosh, Lieut. James, supports Sheriff Jones 
with U. S. troops, 140; concerning disorders 
in Kansas, 214; 197. 

McKim, J. Miller, 513, 549, s6i, 562. 

Mace, J, N., shooting of, 141. 

Manes, John B., 178. 

Manes, Poindexter, 172. 

Manning, Rev. Jacob M., 560. 

Mansfield, James, 558 and n. 

" Manual of the Patriotic Volunteer," transla- 
tion by H. Forbes, 286, 298. 

Marais des Cygnes, 149, 196, 229, 235, 236, 239, 
244, 247, 249. 

Marais des Cygnes Massacre. 186, 187, 354, 
355, 375. And see Hamilton. Charles A. 

" Marais duCygne.Le," by J. G. Whittier, 349- 



INDEX 



729 



Marais des Cygnes River, 198. 

Marcy, W. L., Sec'y of State, 255. 

" Marion Rifles," 149, 150. 

Martin, Henry, alias of Montgomery, 573, 576. 

Martin, Hugh, 3O9. 

Martinsburg company, at Harper's Ferry, 443; 
cuts off B's only avenue of escape, 443. 

Maryland Heights, 428, 429. 

Mason, Dr., jail-physician, 489, 495. 

Mason, J. M., U. S. Senator from Virginia, his 
questions to B in the interview following his 
capture, 457 seqq.; quoted, 469; chairman of 
investigating committee of U. S. Senate, 478; 
and F. B. Sanborn, 533; and G. L. Stearns, 
534; presents majority report of his commit- 
tee, s8o; 456, 470, SOS n., 529, 566. 

Mason Committee, F. B. Sanborn's testimony 
before, 533; and G. L. Stearns's, 534, 535; 
its sessions, 580; reports of majority, 580, 
581-583, and minority, 580, 581; 182, 331, 
34^. 359, 399, 409. 

Massachusetts and the Anthony Burns case, 
384. 

Massachusetts Arms Co., sells revolvers to G. 
L. Stearns, for B, 289; 341. 

Massachusetts Kansas Committee, votes to 
give B 200 rifles previously sent to Tabor, 
Iowa, 274, 27s; controversy as to arms and 
money, 341-343; accused of duplicity, 341; 
its defence, 342 ; its affairs confused with those 
of National Kansas Com., 360, 361; 227,271, 
279, 2S9, 317, 339, 340, 359. 

Massachusetts Legislature, urged to appropri- 
ate $100,000 for Free State cause in Kansas, 
277; B before Committee on Federal Rela- 
tions, 277; refuses appropriation, 278. 

Massasoit House, Chicago, color-line drawn at, 
329. 

Massasoit House, Springfield, B a welcome vis- 
itor at, 278; 282, 284. 1^ 

Maughas, G. B. M. See Jackson, Congrave. 

Maxson, William, 312, 315, 316, 328. 

May, Samuel J., 85. 

Mayflower Company, i, 19. 

Medary. Gov. Samuel, prejudiced against Free 
State leaders by Montgomery's attack on 
Fort Scott, 366, 367; applies for U. S. troops, 
and for arms for Kansas militia, 367; his ac- 
tion on B's Missouri raid, 376, 377; 364, 370, 
371, 374. 378, 379, 381. 

Memminger, O. G., quoted, 567. 

Memorandum Book, No. 2, B's (in Boston Pub- 
lic Library), quoted, 53. 

Mendenhall, Richard, 134. 

Meriam, Francis J., joins B at Chambersburg, 
and supplies him with funds, 412, 420, 421; 
his character and antecedents, 421; at Har- 
per's Ferry, 421 ; left to guard arms at Ken- 
nedy Farm, 421, 426; his arrival removes last 
obstacle to making attack, 423; his final es- 
cape, 471; sketch of, 685; 415, 446, 468. 

" Meridezene." See Marais des Cygnes. 

Messenger, the, who brought news to " Pot- 
tawatomies' " camp of threats against Free 
State settlers, his identity, or actuality, dis- 
puted, 17s, 176; probably non-existent, 176, 
177. 

Metternich, Col. Richard, 575, 579. 

Meulen, Peter Wouter van der, maternal an- 
cestor of B, 15. 

Mexican War, 59, 79. 

Middle West, difficulties of pioneering in, in 
early 19th century, 8, 9. 

Miller, Col. C. D., G. Smith's son-in-law, 535. 

Mills, Benj., master-armorer at Harper's Ferry, 
a prisoner, 439. 455- 

Mills, Rev. Gideon, B's maternal great-grand- 
father, 15. 

Mills, Lieut. Gideon, B's maternal grandfather, 
15. 



Mills, Lucius, 220, 222, 223. 

Mills, Owen, 30. 

Mills, Peter, son of Peter van der Meulen, and 
B's maternal great-great-grandfather, 15. 

Mills, Ruth, descent of, 15; marries Owen 
Brown, 12. And see Brown, Rutli (.Mills). 

Mills. Ruth (Humphrey), B's maternal grand- 
niDthcr, IS. 

Mills, Lt.-Col. S. S., 467. 

Mina, Spanish leader of guerrillas, 53. 

Missouri, crucial position of, 80; her relation to 
Kansas controversy, 83; effect of Kansas 
election of 1855 on soberer elements, 99; B's 
raid into, 367 seqq.; its deplorable results, 
370 seq(|.; governor offers reward for B's 
arrest, 371. 

Missouri Compromise, repeal of, 79. 

Missouri Democrat, 99, 382. 

Missouri River, blockaded by Missourians 
against Lane's Free State force. 225. 

Missourians, armed, at Osawatomie, 90; fraud- 
ulent votes cast by. in Kansas election of 
1854, 94; and New England emigrants to 
Kansas, 96; their preparations for the second 
election in Kansas, 98, and easy triumph, 98, 
99; posing as Kansas militia, 115, 116, 123, 
124; refrain from voting in election under 
Topeka Const., except in Leavenworth, 128; 
in camp at Black Jack, 200; raided at Frank- 
lin, 212; large force invades Kansas, 257 seqq.; 
their threatened attack on Lawrence averted 
by Geary and Cooke, 259; disbandment of 
Atchison's army a fatal blow to their hopes, 
261. 

Mitchel, Prof. Ormsby M.. 563. 

Mitchell, Col. R. R., 349, 365. 

Mitchell, W. A., his Historic Linn quoted, 356, 
357. 

Mobile Tribune, 231. 

Mofifet, Charles W., suspected of writing 
" Floyd letter," 411; 308, 330, 344, 406, 409. 

Moneka (Kansas), B at, 353. 354- 

Monroe, S., alias used by B in 1859, 402. 

Montgomery, James, one of the most interest- 
ing figures of the border warfare, 350; his 
Civil War record, 350, 351; his exploits in 
Kansas, 351 ; a border chieftain after B's own 
heart, 352; in touch with B, 353; attempted 
assassination of, 363; his raid on Paris. Kan- 
sas, 364; the plot to capture him and B, 365; 
at Sugar Mound meeting, 365, 366; attacks 
Fort Scott, in violation of agreement adopted 
by that meeting, 366; his reason for assuming 
leadership of this exploit, 367; reward offered 
for his arrest, 371; writes to Lawrence Re- 
publican, 377; surrenders. 377; speaks in 
church at Lawrence, 377; his efforts for peace, 
378; T. W. Higginson concerning, 573; inter- 
ested in attempt to save Stevens and Haz- 
lett, 573 seqq.; his daring venture in that 
cause, 577, 578; 179. 180, 187, 349, 362, 370, 
373, 374. 375. 376, 377, 379, 514- 

Montgomery, Mrs. James, 350. 

Moore, Mr., a preacher, 201, 202, 208. 

Moore, Eli. murderer, 352. 

Morey, Joseph H. 246. 

Morgan, Shubel. alias assumed by B on his last 
visit to Kansas, 345, 352 seqq.; articles of 
agreement and roster of his company, 666, 
667. 

Morgan, William, murder of, 26. 

Morse, Mr., ill-treated by VVilkinson, Doyles, 
and Sherman. 174, 175. 

Morse, Mrs. Emma Wattles, describes B's re- 
turn after Missouri raid. 371. 372; describes 
one of liis narrow escapes, 621 n. 86. 

Morse, O. E., his AUempied Rescue of John 
Brown, 656 n. 62. 

Morton, Edwin, 320, 322, 535. 

Mott, Lucretia, 50 n., 510, 549. 



730 



INDEX 



Munroe, Rev. W. C, colored, president of Chat- 
ham Convention, 331. 
Myers, Henry, 54. 
Myers, Mrs. Henry, 54. 

Napoleon I, Ufe of, among books which influ- 
enced B, 16, 325. 

Napoleon III, 564. 

National Democratic Party in Kansas, abortive 
attempt to form, 102. 

National Kansas Committee, organized at Buf- 
falo, 227 ; work of, 227 ; meeting in New York, 
Jan. 24, 1857, 27s; controversy concerning 
rifles, 275; votes B Ssooo for defensive mea- 
sures, 276; charged by B with bad faith, 276; 
its affairs confused with those of Mass. Kan- 
sas Cora., 360, 361; B's requisition on, for 
outfit for volunteer-regulars, 664 seqq.; 269, 
294, 298, 317. 342, 357. 359. 360, 388, 389, 
581. 

National Republican Party, organized at Pitts- 
burg, 132; 147. 

Nebraska City, Lane's caravan at, 225. 

Negroes, B's plan for their education, 44; de- 
nounced by B in Sambo's Mistakes for their 
" supineness " in face of wrong, so; B founds 
U. S. League of Gileadites in their interest, 
SO, SI ; signatures of, to B's agreement and re- 
solutions, 52; B's counsel to those in No. 
Elba, 72; assisted by B, 73; their settlement 
at No. Elba not a success, 73; advised by B to 
resist Fugitive Slave Law, 75 ; in Canada, 327, 
328; in B's party at Chatham, 330, 331; signi- 
ficance of Chatham Convention to, 333, 334; 
no uprising among them induced by B's 
Harper's Ferry raid, 468, 469; B's negro fol- 
lowers could not be convicted of treason, 570. 

Negroes, free, two conventions of Free State 
party in Kansas vote to exclude, 104, los; 
excluded by popular vote, 105. 

New England, recognizes distinction between 
" butcliery " and " killing," 264, 265. 

New England Emigration Society, loi, 227. 

New England Woolen Co., and B's misuse of 
money advanced, 30. 

New Englanders in Kansas, epithets applied 
to, 96. 

New Georgia, pro-slavery settlement at, broken 
up, 229. 

New Haven, suppression of schools for negroes 
in, 45; colony from, in Kansas, 138; 278. 

New Lucy, steamboat, 81. 

New Orleans Bee, 14. 

New York, law of, concerning indictments like 
B's, 494 n. 

New York Abend-Zeitung, 474. 

New York City, union meeting in, 563. 

New York Evening Post, 350. 

New York Herald, report of " interview " be- 
tween B , Gov. Wise, and others, in issue of 
Oct. 21, 1859, 456-463; H. Forbes in, 467; at- 
tacks Gerrit Smith and Seward, 472 ; quoted, 
492, 493. 535; 125. 480, 486, 501, 518 n., 568, 
583. 

New York Independent, 285, 318. 

New York Journal of Commerce, quoted, soi. 

New York Observer, 501. 

New York Times, quoted concerning maltreat- 
ment of Jason Brov;n and John. Jr. as prison- 
ers, 196; concerning release of John, Jr., 254, 
255; 230, 373. 

New York Tribune, aimed at by penal code of 
Shawnee Legislature, 92; Black Jack affair 
discussed in, 202; publishes B's account of 
Black Jack affair, 204-207; quoted, 378, 488; 
and the attack on Harper's Ferry, 472; mis- 
taken editorial comment of, 631 n. 42; 49, 93, 
95, 96, 123, 126, 129, 137, 138, 139, 172, 174. 
175, 179, 192, 197, 199, 213, 220, 234. 235, 
244, 28s, 287, 480, 490, 518, 520, 548 n., 570. 



Newby, Dangerfield, in B'a Harper's Ferry 
party, 415, 419; killed by R. B. Washington, 
439; the first of the raiders to die, 439; his 
body treated with shocking indignity. 439; 
sketch of, 686. 

Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, 326. 

" Noble Sons of Liberty, The," 519. 

North, ignoranre in, of demoralization and law- 
lessness of Free State men, 265; opinion in, 
unfavorably affected by B's speedy trial, 479, 
480; predicament of B's supporters in, after 
the failure at Harper's Ferry, 528 seqq.; out- 
burst of feeling in, after B's execution, 559. 

North Elba, negro settlement in Adirondacks, 
67; visited by B, 71; B's first settlement at, 
72; settlers displeased by arrival of negroes, 
73; why negro settlement there was not a 
success, 73; B's second home at, 76. 

Northern press, attitude of, toward raids com- 
mitted by Free State men and by pro-slavery 
men in Kansas, 212; ignores Free State out- 
rages, 264. 

Nute, Rev. Ephraim, 215, 255. 

Oberlin College, Owen Brown a supporter and 
trustee of, 15; B's negotiations with trustees 
of, concerning purchase of real estate in V^ir- 
ginia, 31-33- 

O'Conor, Charles, 563. 

Ohio, early settlement, 8, 9; wild animals in, 9. 

Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, 27. 

" Old Osawatomie Brown," name by which B 
was known after battle of Osawatomie, 244. 

Oliver, Mordecai, member of Congress from 
Missouri, on Howard Com., 94 n.; quoted 
concerning A. Wilkinson, 156; charges Free 
State leaders with inspiring B's Pottawato- 
mie expedition, 183, 184; files report of mino- 
rity of Howard Com., 226; 161, 191. 

Orsini, his attempt on Louis Napoleon com- 
pared by A. Lincoln to B's raid, 564. 

Osawatomie, Rev. S. L. Adair settles at, 79; B's 
sons settle at, 81; B arrives at, 88; condition 
of Brown settlement, in freezing weather, 88; 
first brigade of Kansas volunteers enrolled at, 
121; election of Jan. 1856, 130; settlers' meet- 
ing, 134, 135; public meeting at, condemns 
Pottawatomie murders, 168, 169; no killings 
and but five definite pro-slavery offences in 
neighborhood prior to those murders, 171, 
172; pillaged by Whitfield's men, 212, 213; 
" reign of terror " in, 214; B and Free State 
men at, Aug. 29, 1856, 239, 240; attack on, 
241; destroyed after battle, 246; sources for 
story of the battle, 619 n. 50. 

Osawkee, raided by A. D. Stevens, 254. 

Ottawa Indians, 9, 133. 

Ottawa Jones. See Jones, J. T. 

Ottendorfer, Oswald, 575. 

Oviatt, Reman, 27, 28, 33, 37-39. 

Oviatt, Orson M., 17. 

Owen, Mr., 380. 

Packer, William F., Gov. of Pennsylvania, 524 

Painter, John H., 312, 316, 389- 

Palmyra, Battle of, B's name for Black Jack 

fight, 204. 
Paola (Kansas), 193, 194. 
" Parallels ": the Marais des Cygnes massacre, 

contrasted with B's Missouri raid, by B, 375, 

376. 
Paris (France), B's visit to, 61. 
Paris (Kansas), raided by B and Montgomery, 

364. 
Paris (Mo.) Mercury, 99. 
Parker, Laben, murder of, 215. 
Parker, Nathaniel, 253. 
Parker, Judge Richard, presides at trial of B 

and other raiders. 476, 479 seqq.; reviews the 

trial in 1888 (St. Louis Globe- Democrat) , 481, 



INDEX 



731 



482; his impartiality and judicial spirit, 482; 
charges grand jury, 488; denies B's request 
for delay, 489; refuses to delay trial on ac- 
count of change of counsel, 493, 494; denies 
motion to require prosecution to elect, 494 
and n.; his decisions upheld by Court of Ap- 
peals, 494; denies motion for arrest of judg- 
ment, 497; pronounces sentence of death, 
499; sketch of, 644 n. 36; 484, 48S, 490, 492. 
521,546,588. 

Parker, Rev. Theodore, his attitude toward B, 
272; his John Brown's Expedition, quoted, 
529; after the failure at Harper's Ferry, 529; 
quoted. 564; 269, 271, 273, 274. 289, 298, 320, 
324, 326, 339. 340, 397, 565. Letters to B, 3-'5, 
F. Jackson, 564; Jrotn B, 324- 

Parkville (Mo.) Luminary, destroyed by pro- 
slavery mob, 99. 100. 

Parrott, Marcus J., elected delegate to Con- 
gress in Oct. 1857, 306. 

Parsons, Luke F., in battle of Osawatomie. 243 
seqq.; 232,250, 253,308, 313. 3i4. 3i5, 33o, 

343. 344, 409- , .„ ^ . , 
Partridge, George W., killed in the river, 24s; 

196, 237, 239. 514. _ 

Partridge, Mary, and the plot to rescue B, 514. 
Partridge, William, 121, 358. 
Pate, Henry C, his John Brown as viewed by 
Henry Clay Pate, quoted concerning Potta- 
watomie murders, 156; and concerning Black 
jack, 202, 203; in Missouri Republican, 189; 
goes to assist U. S. marshal to arrest murder- 
ers 193; his earlier and later history, 201; in 
camp at Black Jack, 202; B's story of the 
" battle " with him, 202, 203; claims to have 
been taken prisoner by treachery, 203; his 
story in N. Y. Tribune, 203; why he resorted 
to a flag of truce, 203, 204, 205; his story re- 
viewed by B in the Tribune, 204-207; his 
written agreement with B and Capt. Shore, 
207; his later account of the battle, after the 
Harper's Ferry raid, 207; his captivity and 
release, 208; visits B in jail, S46; his challenge 
to Horace Greeley, 613 n. 19; 200. 211, 212. 

Pawnee Legislature. See Shawnee Legislature, 

Peabody, S. E., 281. , , , , , , . 

Pearson, Henry G., his Life of John A. An- 
drew, quoted, 557- ^ , 

Pennington, William, of New Jersey, chosen 
Speaker of the House over John Sherman, 

585- ^ . ^ 
Perham, Josiah, 524. 525- , , 

Perkins, Anna, daughter of Simon, quoted, 65. 
595 n. 42. 

Perkins, George T., son of Simon, letter to 
author. 64. ,„ . , 

Perkins, Simon, Jr. partner of B in sheep-raising 
(1844). 34. 35. 39, 41; B's admiration of 
him, 64; his generous treatment of B, 64, 65; 
further business relations with B, 66, 67. 

Perkins and Brown, ofhce of. in Springfield, 57; 
business of, 58, 59; exporting wool. 59; 
troubles with manufacturers. 60; ill-success of 
B's trip to Europe, 61 seqq.; increasing diffi- 
culties and final failure, 64, 65; law-suits by 
and against, 64, 65. 75; their creditors, 64; 75- 
Letters to Crafts and Still, 59, Hamilton Gay, 
59, B. W. Ladd, 60. 

Perkins Hill, 35- ,_ , • 

Perry, Gov. of Florida, his message to the legis- 
lature, 584- . ,, 

Peticolas, Dr. A. E., letter to A. Hunter, 504 n. 

Phelps, B. and O. conductor, 432, 433. 434- 

Phil (.A.llstadt's negro), 468. . 

Philadelphia, B's body at, 561; anti-slavery 
convention at, 562. 

Philadelphia North American, quoted concern- 
ing dispersal of Topeka Free State Legisla- 
ture, 220. 



Phillips, Wendell, his address at B's grave, 562 ; 
271, 281, 330, Sio, 516, S4S. 554. 560, S6i. 
563. 565. 574- , ^ ,, ^ 

Phillips, William, friend of C. McCrea, tarred 
and fealliered, no; murdered at Leaven- 
worth, 252; 123, 124, 125, 129, 179, iKi. 
Phillips. W. A., his Coiiijuest of Kansas, (luoted, 
96, 97, 602 n. 13; concerning pro-slavery out- 
rages, 214; starts for Topeka with B. 220; de- 
scribes the journey in Atlantic Monthly. 221; 
293. 296, 304 n.. 352, 362. 
" Pickles," with B in Missouri raid, 368. 
Pickman, W. D., 281. 

Pierce. Franklin, President of U. S., special 
message concerning Shawnee Legislature, and 
acts of Free State men, 130; proclamation in 
favor of pro-slavery men, 130, 131; Gov. 
Shannon reports fight at Black Jack to, 2ii; 
his despatches to Shannon. 211; makes Col. 
Sumner a scapegoat, 217; calls Congress in 
special session (Aug. 1856), 227; removes 
Gov. Shannon from office, 234; failure of his 
administration to support Gov. Geary causes 
Geary's resignation, 294; 93,ii5. ii7. 132, 
134. 135. 138, 139, 144 n., 169. 209, 233. 
Pike, J. A.. 575, 576, 580. 
Pike, J. D.. quoted, 599 n. 43. 
Pinkerton, A., and B's party of freed slaves, 390. 
Platte County Argus, quoted, 96. 
Platte County Riiiemen, commanded by Atchi- 
son in movement on Lawrence, 144. 
Pleasant Valley (Md.), false alarm at, 470, 471- 
Plummer, Charles, alias of C. P. Tidd, 579. 
Plutarch's Lives, 16, 325. 

Pomeroy, S. C, concerning Pottawatomie mur- 
ders, 182; inaccuracies in his letter, 183; ar- 
rested on entering Kansas, 260; visits B in 
jail, 546; 119, 272, 512. Letter to Rebecca B 
Spring, 182. 
Pomeroy Guards, 149, 150. 
Portage (O.) Sentinel, 473, 474. 569- 
Post, Zina, 41. 

Pottawatomie Creek, murders on. May 24-25. 
1856, 148 seqq.; first reported to Free State 
companies, 151; attitude of Free State rnen 
toward, 167, 168; possible justification of, dis- 
cussed, 170 seqq.; not due to meeting at 
Dutch Henry's, 177; were they a peace mea- 
sure? 180; called a just act of retaliation for 
sack of Lawrence, etc., 180; not both a peace 
and a war measure. 181 ; did not put an end to 
Border Rufiian violence, 181; successful as a 
war measure, 181, 182; defended by S. C. 
Pomeroy, 182, 183; victims not tried by jury, 
184 185; deprived Free State cause of a great 
moral advantage. 187. 188; ethically and 
morally without excuse or palliation. 187, 
188; sensational announcement of, by Mis- 
souri journals, 189; persons under arrest for, 
189; press comments on, 190, 191; not men- 
tioned by Liberator, 191; reported to Pr<-s. 
Pierce by Shannon, 192; news of, posted in 
Leavenworth, 192; meeting of Law-and-Order 
partv concerning, 192; Whitfield's men take 
revenge for, at Osawatomie, 212, 213; coun- 
try not " at peace " after, 213; in Oliver's re- 
port of minority of Howard Com., 226; did 
not injure Free State cause in the North, 
2^6- little known about them in Boston at 
time of B's first visit, 274; B's connection 
with them never known to G.L.Stearns, 274; 
what of other Boston friends? 274; B s con- 
nection with them, 545; authorities for story 
of, 608 headnote. And see Doyle family, 
Wilkinson, and Sherman. Dutch Bill. 
" Pottawatomies," John Brown. Jr. 's company, 
149, 150; revulsion of feeling among, after the 
murders, 166. 
Potter, Rt. Rev. H. C, 558 n. 
Powers, Theo. P., 244. 



732 



INDEX 



Prairie City Rifles, B's force at Black Jack so- 
called, 201. 

Press, North and South, comments of, on B 
and the raid, 568, 569. 

Preston, Col. J. T. L., ss6, 5S7. And see Allen, 
Elizabeth Preston. 

Preston, Wm. J., deputy U. S. marshal, afraid 
to serve warrants, 210. 

Price, C. H., chairman of public meeting at 
Osawatomie, 168, 169. 

Price, Hiram, 390. 

Pro-slavery Congressmen, effect of their ac- 
tion, to unify Free State determination, 139. 

Pro-slavery leaders, of Missouri, contemptuous 
of Free State movement, 108; meet at Frank- 
lin after treaty of peace, 124; and Border 
Ruffian invasion of Kansas under Buford, 
138; exultation over Lawrence burnings, 146; 
ascribe all virtues to Pottawatomie victims, 
156, 157. 

Pro-slavery men, unseated in Kansas, 99; div- 
ers outrages perpetrated by, no, in and n.; 
Weiner's complaints of their outrages re- 
sponsible for B's Pottawatomie plan, 151, 
152; names of certain men selected by H. H. 
Williams for death, 152; offences committed 
by, in Osawatomie region prior to murders, 
171, 172; raided by Free State men at Frank- 
lin, 212; W. A. Phillips, concerning outrages 
committed by, 214; more guilty than Free 
State men in respect to crimes of violence, 
215; attitude of non-slaveholders among, 
216; plunder Quaker mission, 235; in force in 
neighborhood of B's company, 237; attacked 
by Cline, and put to flight, 237; raid Osawa- 
tomie, 240 seqq.; deny charges of outrages, 
264; control Lecompton Const. Conv., 296; 
joint meeting with Free State men adopts B|s 
peace agreement, 366; attempt to check B's 
journey with freed slaves, 381 seqq., 388. 

Pro-slavery outrages in Kansas in summer of 
1856, 214, 215. 

Pro-slavery party, in Kansas, early triumphs of, 
94, 9S; its hatred of Gov. Reeder the true 
reason of his dismissal, 100; its duty accord- 
ing to Stringfellow, loi; Law-and-Order 
party formed by, 108; homicides by, 112, 
113; and the rescue of Branson, 113, 114; 
forces raised by, to besiege Lawrence, 114 
seqq.; Pres. Pierce's proclamation in support 
of, 130, 131; finds in Pottawatomie murders 
an answer to Northern criticisms of sack of 
Lawrence, 188; turns against Gov. Walker, 
29s; and the vicissitudes of the Lecompton 
Const., 346 seqq.; passage of English bill by 
Congress a victory for, 347 ; finally defeated 
in election of Aug. 2, 1858, 347, 348- 

Pro-slavery press, attitude of, concerning Pot- 
tawatomie murders, 189-igi. 

Pro-slavery settlements in Linn and Bourbon 
counties threatened by B. 235. 

" Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for 
the People of the U. S.," drawn up by B., 332 
seqq.; preamble of, 334; provisions of, dis- 
cussed, 334. 333 ; some parts suggest insanity, 
334, 33.'i ; extraordinary provisions concerning 
treaty-making, 335; Article 46, 336- 

Provisional Constitutional Convention at Chat- 
ham, 331 seqq. And see Chatham Conven- 
tion. 

Pryor, Judge Roger A,, 506 n. 

Quaker Mission, plundered by pro-slavery 

men, 235. 
Quin, Luke, marine, killed in engine house, 454. 

Radical Political Abolitionists, hold convention 

at S'-racuse. 85. 
Ram's Horn, Sambo's Mistakes published in, SO. 



Randolph, Penn., B postmaster at, 43. 

Ravenna (Ohio), 27, 36, 37. 

Reader, Samuel J., his impressions of B, 223, 
224. 

Realf, Richard, his report of B's speech to Chat- 
ham Convention, 331, 332; elected " Sec'y of 
State " at that convention, 333; suspected of 
writing "Floyd letter," 411; 308, 310, 311. 
312, 31S, 316, 329, 337. 338, 343, 344. 4i3. 
Lettei' to B, 294, H. C. Gill, 330. 

Recruiting of settlers for Kansas, 137 seqq. 

Redpath, James, his Public Life of Captain 
John Brown, quoted, 63, 199, 345; describes 
B's camp on Ottawa Creek, 199, 200; his book 
hastily written, 574", i39, i74, I79. 296, 301. 
352, 421, 517, 533, 582, 583. Letter from 
James Foreman, 21-23. 

Reed, Rev. B. L., 348, 375- 

Reed, J. H., alias of R. J. Hinton, 576. 

Reeder, Andrew H., first territorial governor of 
Kansas, orders second election (185s). 98; 
unseats pro-slavery men elected to legisla- 
ture, 99; declares first Territorial legislature 
illegal, 100; his contention denied by judges, 
100; dismissed by Pres. Pierce, ostensibly for 
speculation in Indian lands, 100; becomes 
leader of Free Soilers, 100; regarded in East 
as martyr to abolition cause, 100; leaves 
Kansas in disguise (1S56), loi, 143; elected 
delegate to Congress by Free State votes, 
106; his election ignored by Shannon, 106, 
and declared illegal by Howard Com., 107 n.; 
elected provisionally U. S. Senator by Free 
State Legislature, 132; indicted for treason, 
142; his election as delegate confirmed by 
Committee on Elections, but denied by 
House, 226; declines B's invitation to return 
to Kansas and assume leadership of Free 
State party, 282; but sympathizes with B's 
plans, 282; idO, 190, 29.). 

Reese, Louis A. The Adtnission of Kansas 
(MSS.), 629 n. I. 

Reid. Gen. John W., in attack on Osawatomie, 
240 seqq.; denies that there was a battle, 246; 
protests in vain against destruction of Osa- 
watomie by his men, 246; his report of the 
affair, 246, 247; 257. 

Reisner, Henry, describes B's arrival at Law- 
rence, Sept. 7, 1856. 253. 

Republican National Convention (the first), and 
Kansas, 226. 

Republican Press, and the Pottawatomie mur- 
ders, 191; and Harper's Ferry, 472-474. 

Rescue, plans of Le Barnes and others, 51 1 
seqq.; frowned upon by B, 512. 

Reynolds, Ephraim, Sergeant of Liberty 
Guards, 121. 

Reynolds, Robert, 246. 

Rhodes, James Ford, his History of the U. S., 
191, 294, 612 n. 89. 

Rice, Benjamin, 366, 576, 580. 

Richardson, Richard, a runaway slave, 308, 
316; discriminated against in Chicago, 329; 
330, 337, 338, 344. 413. 

Richardson, Gen. W. P., and the " Wakarusa 
War," 114, 116; 192. 

Richman, Irving B., his John Brown among the 
Quakers, 316. 

Richmond (Penn.), 23 seqq., 43. 

Richmond (Va.) sends militia to Harper's Ferry , 
444. 

Richmond Despatch, quoted, 518. 

Richmond Enquirer, quoted, 475, 476, 568. 

Richmond Grays, 469. 

Richmond Whig, quoted, 500. 

Riddle, Albert G., his Personal Recollections of 
War Times, 646 n. 74. 

Ripley (Va.), 31. 48. 

Ritchie, Capt. John, reinforces B near Topeka 
(Jan. 1859), 381 seqq.; 449- 



INDEX 



733 



Robertson, Richard. See Richardson, Richard. 

Robinson, Charles, Free Soil leader, obtains 
rilies from Emigrant Aid Society, 08; chair- 
man of Com. on Resolutions in Free State 
Convention of Aug. 14-15, 1856, 102; in sec- 
ond convention of .Xug, 15, 103; chairman of 
Territorial Exec. Com., 106; addresses meet- 
ing at Lawrence after treaty of peace, 123, 
and pro-slavery meeting at Franklin, 124; 
invites Shannon and Jones to peace gather- 
ing, 124; his ruse and its result, 125, 126; 
Free Soil candidate for governor, izg; his 
inaugural address, 132; Kan.sas member of 
Nat. Republican Com., 132; at indignation 
meeting for shooting of Mace, 141; indicted 
for treason, 142; and for avoiding arrest on in- 
dictment not yet found, 142, 143; in confine- 
ments four months, 143; his house burned, 
146; quoted concerning Pottawatomie mur- 
ders, 169, 170; said to have inspired the mur- 
ders, 183, 184; denies all complicity in them, 
184; likens B to Jesus, and later denounces 
him, 184; his Kansas Conflict, 232 n., 596 n. 4; 
and Gov. Shannon, 234; favorably impressed 
by Gov. Geary, 257; significance of his letters 
as bearing on the question who saved Kan- 
sas 262; controversy with John Brown, Jr., 
concerning intei-view with B, 263; at Topeka 
Convention, 296; loi, 108, 122, 140, 150, 190, 
191, 255, 265, 266, 271,272,207,307,346.367. 
Letters to B, 262, 263. 

Robinson, Michael, murdered by Hamilton's 
gang, 348, 375- 

Robinson, Mrs. Sara T. L., wife of Charles, 
her Kansas: its Interior and Exterior Life, 
89 n., 97, 98, 142; concerning assaults on wo- 
men, 173, 174; 179, 192, 598 n. 31,011, n. 64, 
613 n. 7. 

RoUin's Ancient History, 16. 

Ropes, Hannah Anderson, her Six Months in 
Kansas, 89 n. 

Rosengarten, Joseph G., his account of the 
aftermath of the raid, 469, 470. 

Ross, Patrick, murdered by Hamilton's gang, 
348. 

Rosser, Col. P. H., 240. 

Root, Dr. J. P., conductor of Nat. Kansas Com. 
" train " to Tabor, 269, 270. Letter from J. 
D. Webster, 269. 

Rotch, W. J., 281. 

Rowan, Captain, 436, 438. 

Russell, G. R., 325. 

Russell, Judge 'Thomas, B in hiding at his house 
in Boston, 288; quoted concerning B's speech 
before sentence, 498 n.; visits B in jail, 545; 
quoted, 647 n. 83; 271, 493, 512. 

Russell, Mrs. Thomas, 288, si 2, ,S4S. 

Russell, Maj. W. W.. a volunteer in Lieut. 
Green's storming party, 452 seqq.; sketch of, 
642 n. 62; 4S0. 462 n. 

Rutherford, Dr. W. W., 576. 

St. Joseph, Mo., city attorney of, a fraudulent 
voter in Kansas, 94. 

St. Louis Evening News, quoted as to affairs in 
Kansas, 216; as to the raid, 472. 

St. Louis Intelligencer, 99, 117. 

St. Louis Missouri-Democrat, 199, 371. 

St. Louis Missouri-Republican, 83, 156, 189, 
190, 19!, 193, 201. 

St. Louis Morning Herald and the Pottawa- 
tomie murders, 191; 247. 

St. Louis Pilot, 95. 

Sacs and Foxes, in Kansas, 90. 

Sambo's Mistakes, 50; quoted in full, 659-661. 

Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin, B's first meeting 
with, 271; his first impressions of B, 271; in- 
troduces B to other friends of the cause, 271 ; 
and sale of Thompson farm to B, 281 ; defends 
B against blame for delay, 303; withB at Ger- 



rit Smith's, 321, 322; agrees with Smith to 
support B, i22; B visits him in May, 1859, 
395; his faithful labors in the cause, 395, 396; 
his statement as to the conspirators' know- 
ledge of B's plans, 397; after the failure at 
Harper's Ferry, 529, 53o; his opinion of Dr. 
Howe's card, 533; his account of his own 
movements, 533; arrested. 533, 534; his Life 
and Letters of John Brown, quoted, 28, 20, 46, 
341, 361; his Recollections of Seventy Years, 
quoted, 321, 530, 533, 627 n. 27; his John 
Brown and his Friends, and Virginia Cam- 
paign of John Brow>i, quoted, 421; 184, 27s, 
277, 282, 284. 298. 299, 305, 319. 320, 324. 
325, 330, 336, 338, 340, 342. 399. 421, S12, 
517, 536, 582. Letters to T. VV. Higginson, 
271, 303. 325. 326, 339, 396, 530; from B, 322, 
353. 354. John Brown, Jr., 45. 

Sanborn, Miss, 534. 

Saunders, " Fort," near Lawrence, attacked by 
Free State men, 231. 

Savannah Republican, quoted, 500. 

Sayre, Dr. Lewis A., 504 n. 

Scadsall, C. C. See Hadsall, C. C. 

Schoppert, G. A., and the killing of Leeman, 
440. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 326. 

Seaman, Benjamin, 576. 

Seaman, Henry C, 576, 580. 

Secession issue, as affected by B's execution, 
506. 

Secession movement, too far advanced before 
the raid for peaceable solution, 587. 

Sedgwick, Major John, quoted concerning 
Lawrence raid and Pottawatomie murders, 
169; concerning dispensal of B's force after 
the battle of Black Jack, 209; 197, 212, 217, 
232, 234. 

Self-Defensive Association, in Platte Co., Mo., 
proceedings of, 98; compelled to disband, 
599 n. 66. 

Senate of U. S., passes Toombs bill, but rejects 
Grow bill, 227; appoints committee to inves- 
tigate raid, 478. And see Grow, G. A., and 
Toombs, Robert. 

Seneca Indians, 9. 

Sennott, George, 513, 570. 

Severns, Charles, 372. 

Sewall, S. E., 559, 560. 

Seward, W. H., and H. Forbes, 318; attacked 
by N. Y. Herald, 472; quoted, 564, 565; 339, 
474. 502, 566. 

Shaler, Nathaniel S., autobiography, quoted, 10. 

Shannon, Wilson, second Territorial Governor 
of Kansas, his character, 103; ignores Reed- 
er's election as delegate, 106; and the Cole- 
man-Dow murder and rescue of Branson, 
1 14 seqq.; orders out militia against Lawrence, 
114; his duplicity, 115; addresses meeting at 
Lawrence after treaty of peace, 123, and pro- 
slavery meeting at Franklin, 124; deceived by 
Robinson, gives him and Lane authority to 
preserve peace, 125; his letter to the N. Y. 
Herald, 125; blamed by pro-slavery men, 126; 
U. S. troops in Kansas put under his orders, 
131; returns to Kansas, 132; refuses to send 
troops to protect citizens of Lawrence, 144; 
reports to Pres. Pierce as to effect of Potta- 
watomie murders, 169, 192; reports Black 
Jack affair to same, 211; his difficulties, 211; 
his proclamation, 211; makes requisition for 
U. S. troops, 211; Col. Sumner and the dis- 
persal of the Free State legislature, 217-220; 
effects release of Titus and other prisoners, 
and resigns governorship, 233, 234; his fare- 
well speech to citizens of Lawrence, 234; his 
resignation not accepted, 234; removed by 
Pres. Pierce, 234; his later residence in Law- 
rence, 234; 92, 108, 130, 133, 209. Letter to 
Col, Sumner, 21S, 



734 



INDEX 



Sharp's rifles, doctrine of opposing slavery 
with, commended by N. Y. Tribune, 49; 
shipped to Robinson as " Revised Statutes " 
and " books," 98; supplied by Mjiss. Kans. 
Com., controversy about, 275; story of trans- 
fer of, to B, in spring of 1858, 340 seqq. 

Shawnee Legislature, denounced by Free State 
Convention, 91; code of punishments for 
Free State men, enacted by, 91, 92; meeting 
and organization (at Pawnee), 100; declared 
illegal by Gov. Reeder, 100; petitions Pres. 
Pierce to remove Reeder, 100; acts of, loi; 
no genuine attempt made to enforce " Black 
Laws," loi; attacked by successive Free 
State conventions, 102, 103; denounced by 
Big Springs Convention, 104; declared a legal 
body by Pres. Pierce, 130; defied by settlers' 
meeting at Osawatomie, 134. I3S; its laws 
declared effective by Judge Lecompte, 142; 
resistance to its laws declared to be high trea- 
son, 142; 131, 136. is6. 

Shawnee Mission, sessions of pro-slavery legis- 
Uiture held at. Sec Shawnee Legislature. 

Shelby. Col. Joseph. 225. 

Shepherdstown Troop at Harper's Ferry, 444. 

Sheridan, Mrs., 308. 

Sherman, Dutch Bill, murder of, 162-164; 
Harris's stor>' of the murder, 162-164; ^wd 
Mary Grant, 172, 173. i77; and the Morse 
case, 174; iSi. iSS. 182. 

Sherman, Dutch Henry, his horses taken by 
B, 235; murdered by Cransdell, 236; and Ot- 
tawa Jones, 253 and n.; 13s. is6, 162, 163, 
212. 

Sherman. Dutch Pete, 155. 

Sherman. John, member of Congress from 
Ohio, on Howard Com., 94 n.; and W. A. 
Howard, report of, quoted, 120; his indorse- 
ment of Helper's book causes his defeat in 
Speakership contest. Dec. 1850.SSJ. S**4. S8s; 
184, 227. Letler to Rev. E. B. Jones (1897). 
506 n. 

Sherman, 'W^illiam. Sec Sherman. Dutch Bill. 

Shermans. pro-slaver>" settlement of, on Potta- 
watomie Creek, I3S; thfir unsavory reputa- 
tion, 15s, 156; alleged intimidation by, 172; 
I So. 

Shields, Gen., letter from W. Limerick, 240. 

Shirley, Walter, 520. 

Shore, Samuel T., captain of Osawatomie com- 
pany, ISO; in Black Jack fight, 202 sefiq.; 
many of his men quit, 202, 204; and return 
after the battle, 208; killed at " Fort " Titus, 
2JI. 232; 200, 240. 

Shriver, Col., .152. 

Silsbee, Benj. H., 281. 

Silsbee. John H., 281. 

Sinn, Capt., his interview with B In the engine 
house, 447; disgustwl with conduct of citizens, 
447, 448; protects Stevens, 448; his fine spirit, 
448 and n.; visits B in jail, 544. 

Slave States, their political supremacy endan- 
gered by the carving of new states out of 
westL-m territorj'. 80. 

Slaveholders, B's object at one time to terror- 
ize. 56; to be held as hostages according to B's 
plan, 3.12. 

Slavery, B's first personal knowledge of, 4; his 
second experience with. 17. 18; hatred of. in 
his family, 21; its forcible overthrow his 
" greatest and princip.al object," 42 seqq.; 
gradual evolution of his plan to abolish, 48 
eeqq.; to be attacked elsewhere than in Kan- 
sas, to relieve pro-slaver>' pressure there. 56; 
B's main purpose to come to close quarters 
with, 56; and the Kansas-Nebraska .Act. 70; 
to be fastened on Kans;\3. 83; opposition to, 
made a disqualification for holding office by 
Shawnee Legislature. 01; mere belief in its il- 
legality a grave crime, 92; its c:ustence de- 



pendent on its fate in Kansas, according to 
pro-slavery leaders, 97 ; the one issue in Kan- 
sas, according to Stringfellow, loi; opposi- 
tion to, disavowed by Big Springs Conven- 
tion, 104; tendency of, to induce lawless ac- 
tion, 171 ; B's plan to attack it in Virginia di- 
vulged to his recruits, 308; all his recruits bit- 
terly hostile to, 310; characterized in " Pro- 
visional Constitution," 334; and the Lecomp- 
ton Const., 346; .Abolitionist view of, 384; its 
fear of free speech, 568; the sole issue in cam- 
paign of i860, 585; would have been abol- 
ished had B never lived, 586, 587; intolerable 
morally and economically. 587. 

Slavery issue, B's views on, 362; impossible to 
be put aside after B's execution, 506. 

Slaves, severe penalty for encouraging disaffec- 
tion among, enacted by Shawnee Legislature, 

i 91, 92; two freed by J. Brown, Jr.. 150, 151: 
small number in Kansas, 295; ikirt assigned 
to them in B's Virginia plan, and in Forbes's 
plan, 314, 332; a fugitive, in Canada, 327, 
328; freed by B in Missouri raid, 368, 369, 372, 
373; more carefully guarded after Missouri 
raid, 378; B's journey to Canada with his 
freed slaves, 379-390; Northern sentiment 
concerning fugitives, 384; fears of general in- 
surrection aroused by news of Harper's Ferry. 
436; conduct of those impressed by B there, 
46S. 

"Smelly, Capt. James," si9. 

Smith, A. L., and the " Floyd letter," 411, 412. 

Smith, Geo. W., commanding first brigade of 
K;insiis X'oluntecrs, 121 ; indicted for treason, 
142, and arrested. 14s; elected Gov. of Kan- 
sas under Lecompton Const.. 3.\6. 

Smith, Gerrit, his suit against Chicago Tribune, 
46; offers land to negroes, 71; becomes B's 
warm friend, 71; his earnest opposition to 
8laver>'. 71; described by Greeley, 71, 72; 
givi-a money to B and to Forbes, 287; ap- 
proves of Forlx-s's tract, 298; his affection for 
B, 320; B's plans made known to and ap- 
proved by him, 320; agrees with Sanborn to 
support B, S22; rejoices in result of B's .Mis- 
souri raid. 379; B's last visit to, 39.S; his pub- 
lic approval of B's course contrasted with his 
later attitude, 395; after the niid, S3S, 536; 
his insanity. .S3S; his quick recovery and sub- 
sequent denial of complicity in, or knowledge 
of, the raid. 53b; 84. 85. 269, 272. 277, 281, 
291. 293. 319. 327. 330, 333. 339. 340,396, 
4'><>. 472. 474. 522. S(>5- 

Smith, I., alias assumed by B in l8s9. 402. 404. 

" Smith, I., and Sons," B, Oliver and Owen so 
known at Chambersburg, 402, 409. 

Smith, Dr. J. V. S.. </>. 

Smith. James, one of B'a noms de guerre, 393. 

Smith, Judge, 2SS. 

Smith, Owen, ahas of Owen Brown, 4l6. 

Smith. Gen. Persifor T., succeeds Col. Sumner 
in Kansas, 217; his instructions from J. Davis, 
Sec'y of War, 251; condemns acts of Reid's 
force, 2SI ; 260. 

Smith, Rev. Stephen. 323. 

Smith. W. P., m.ister of transportation of B. 
& (). R. K.. Conductor Phelps's dispatch to, 
4.13. 4.14; is incredulous, 434; 519. S^S- 

Snyder, Charles. 348, 375. 

Snyder. Eli. headquarters of B's party with, 
353; the disputed title to his claim, 356. 357: 
tells of B's encounter with Rev. M. White, 
357; 34«. 354. 

Snyder. Elias. 348. 

Soule. Silas C. 514. 575. 576, 577. 578. 

South, the, not a colonizing section, 265; atti- 
tude toward B. 474-476; division of opinion 
In. concerning B's fate after sentence, 500. 

South Carolina, pro-slavery men from, in Kan- 
sas, 137. I3ti; attitude of, 5ii5> 



